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"Lots of celebs took to Twitter last week to give the president a virtual high-five after Obama announced that he now supports same-sex marriage. Of course I was thrilled about the president&amp;#x27;s announcement and psyched that celebs were supporting him, but I&amp;#x27;m extra-psyched that rapper/songwriter/producer/Blue Ivy daddy Jay-Z just said that he agrees with the president&amp;#x27;s new stance on gay marriage. You don&amp;#x27;t have to look too hard to find homophobia in hip-hop, so it&amp;#x27;s especially awesome, in my opinion, that such a major player on the hip-hop arena would speak out in favor of gay marriage. (Here&amp;#x27;s an interesting article on hip-hop and homophobia, if you&amp;#x27;re interested.) I mean, obviously Neil Patrick Harris and Ellen and Jane Lynch&amp;amp;#8212;who all tweeted their support&amp;amp;#8212;support gay marriage. They&amp;#x27;re all gay and married. But I think supporting gay marriage means something else when it&amp;#x27;s coming from a straight hip-hop artist. From Jezebel: In an interview with CNN, Jay-Z was asked about his feelings in the wake of President Obama declaring his support for gay marriage. Jay said that not granting gay people the right to get married is &amp;quot;holding the country back.&amp;quot; He added: &amp;quot;What people do in their own homes is their business and you can choose to love whoever you love. That&amp;#x27;s their business. [It] is no different than discriminating against blacks. It&amp;#x27;s discrimination plain and simple.&amp;quot; When the reporter asked whether Obama&amp;#x27;s stance would cost him votes, Jay insisted: &amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s really not about votes. It&amp;#x27;s about people&amp;amp;#133; I think it&amp;#x27;s the right thing to do.&amp;quot; Read the full story here. Is anyone else impressed by Jay-Z speaking out in favor of gay marriage? More miscellaneous wedding stuff: * As a Bridesmaid, Would You Rather Wear a Short Dress or a Long One? * Some Non-Ugly Stamps to Jazz Up Your Wedding Invites * A Super-Cute (Super-Cheap!) Way to Package Your Favors Photo: Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/weddings/blogs/save-the-date/2012/05/jay-z-speaks-out-in-favor-of-g>