Politics
Hanks has made donations to many Democratic politicians and has been open about his support for same-sex marriage, environmental causes and alternative fuels. Hanks made public his presidential candidate choice in the 2008 election when he uploaded a video to his MySpace account in which he announced his endorsement of Barack Obama.
A proponent of environmentalism, Hanks is an investor in electric vehicles and owns both a Toyota RAV4 EV and the first production AC Propulsion eBox. Hanks was a lessee of an EV1 before it was recalled, as chronicled in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? He is on the waiting list for an Aptera 2 Series.
Hanks was extremely outspoken about his opposition to Proposition 8, an amendment to the California constitution that defined marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. Hanks and others who were in opposition to the proposition raised over US$44 million in contrast to the supporters' $39 million, but Proposition 8 passed with 52% of the vote.
While premiering a TV series in January 2009, Hanks called supporters of Proposition 8 "un-American" and criticized the LDS (Mormon) church members, who were major proponents of the bill, for their views on marriage and their role in supporting the bill. About a week later, Hanks apologized for the remark, saying that nothing is more American than voting one's conscience.
Hanks narrated a video created by Obama for America, entitled The Road We've Traveled.
Read more about this topic: Tom Hanks
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)