THE VIOLETS IN THE MOUNTAINS HAVE BROKEN THE ROCKS

I loved her in High Art, Far From Heaven, Vicki Cristina Barcelona and on TV's Frasier and Six Feet Under, and I'm praying that the Oscar prognosticators are correct about her performance in the upcoming Woody Allen film Whatever Works (that's her, above, at the June 8 Los Angeles premiere). Now I adore the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning actress Patricia Clarkson even more for something she said two days earlier. Perhaps I'm too close to the gay-marriage issue to really see or speak with 100% clarity, but in her recent speech at a Human Rights Campaign event in New Orleans, Patty said everything I've wanted to say but didn't quite know how to. If you've got 15 minutes to spare, watch this video, which I discovered yesterday on Film Experience Blog, one of my favorite online destinations and required daily reading.

If you think you're too busy, make time (or read the speech here, on The Huffington Post). This is important. My future and the future of so many people I care about depend on the only acceptable resolution to this issue. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, whom I always misguidedly supported (along with his wife), failed us in so many ways, particularly in the insane don't-ask-don't-tell policy regarding gays in the military and by signing the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage in the U.S. as being strictly between a man and a woman. Now it's time for President Barack Obama to right his Democratic presidential predecessor's wrongs and follow through on his own campaign rhetoric and his promise to unite, not divide. As Patricia so eloquently and humorously says, if the former Vice President Dick Cheney (a man she accuses of being "to the left of Vlad the Impaler," who for those of you not in the know was the Romanian sadist who is said to have inspired the character of Dracula) can come around, it's time for everyone else to.