Rob Reiner was an unwavering LGBTQ+ ally – here’s everything he did for the queer community
Robert Reiner (C) speaks as Oscar winning writer Dustin Lance Black (L), and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (R) look on during a celebration at Los Angeles City Hall on February 7, 2012 in LA after a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the voter-approved Proposition 8 measure violates the civil rights of gay men and lesbians (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Robert Reiner (C) speaks as Oscar winning writer Dustin Lance Black (L), and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (R) look on during a celebration at Los Angeles City Hall on February 7, 2012 in LA after a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the voter-approved Proposition 8 measure violates the civil rights of gay men and lesbians (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Esteemed director, producer, actor Rob Reiner was found dead in his Los Angeles home on Sunday, alongside his wife of three decades Michele, with police treating the incident as a homicide.
The Hollywood couple were found dead in their home in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, California after police and firefighters were called to the residence on Sunday afternoon (14 December).
According to US media, the couple were found with stab wounds and a member of their family is being questioned by the authorities, but the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has said no suspects are being sought as yet.
“It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner,” a statement from the pair’s family reads. “We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”
The director, 78, rose to fame as Michael “Meathead” Stivic on All in the Family in the 1970s and following that gained a long list of iconic credits to his name, including hits like This is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally and Misery.
Alongside his work in the entertainment industry, Reiner was also celebrated marriage equality and human rights activist – but what exactly did he do for the LGBTQ+ community?
Rob Reiner’s LGBTQ+ activism
Outside of his work in Hollywood, Reiner was a Democrat who was an outspoken activist on several notable causes, including anti-smoking, environmental issues and LGBTQ+ rights.
In 2009, he co-founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), a non-profit organisation which funded the fight against Proposition 8, a measure which sought to ban same-sex marriage in California.
California’s Supreme Court ruled in favour of same-sex marriage in 2008 but Prop 8, a voter ballot initiative, was approved by voters that November and amended the state’s constitution to read that a marriage was only between a man and a woman, nullifying the Supreme Court decision.
Two same-sex couples, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier and Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, took legal action after they were denied marriage licences in the wake of the decision.
The American Foundation for Equal Rights hired a legal team including Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, two lawyers on opposite sides of the political spectrum – and who respectively represented George W. Bush and Al Gore during the 2000 Florida presidential election recount – to fight Prop 8.
The challenge, Hollingsworth v Perry, eventually paved the way for the Supreme Court to take on Obergefell v Hodges, which resulted in the nationwide legalisation of same-sex marriage in the US.
In 2011, Reiner said the Proposition 8 case was like the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education, which found that the notion of “separate but equal” was unconstitutional.
“We don’t believe in separate but equal in any other legal position except this,” Reiner said that year in regards to equal marriage. “We feel that this is the last piece of the civil rights puzzle being put into place.”
“We are all part of the family of man”
In 2015, the director wrote a piece for Variety in which he said: “When I started speaking out about this, I said, ‘Forty years from now, we’ll look back on this the same way we do on women having the right to vote or on African-Americans having civil rights.’ It will be kind of quaint. People will wonder what all the fuss was about. Each one of these steps makes us more one country, and reminds us we are all part of the family of man.”
“Part of the change is generational,” he also wrote. “When Obama was running for president in 2008, even some Black people of my generation didn’t think America was ready to accept an African-American president. It was my kids’ generation that was saying, ‘What is the big deal?’ Education had happened over time. It’s so heartening to think young people don’t think twice about gay marriage. And I think it’s going to be the same with the transgender community. It’s going to get closer and closer to the ideal that we are all one.”
More recently, Reiner showcased his support for the LGBTQ+ community in a statement given at the Human Rights Campaign’s LA dinner in 2019, in which he said society needed to “move past singling out transgender, LGBTQ+, Black, white, Jewish, Muslim, Latino” people.
“We have to get way past that and start accepting the idea that we’re all human beings, we all share the same planet, and we should all have the same rights, period,” he continued. “It’s no more complicated than that.”
