Picking up the Oscar for best original screenplay for "Milk" here on Sunday, writer Dustin Lance Black made an impassioned plea for equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans.
Addressing "gay and lesbian kids" watching the ceremony, Black praised the protagonist of the rights biopic, Harvey Milk, -- played by Sean Penn -- who was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California.
"No matter what everyone tells you, God does love you ... very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights federally across this great nation of ours," he said.
Same-sex marriage remains a deeply divisive issue in the United States, with voters in California last year voting to overturn same-sex marriage rights.
Black described Milk's story as "life saving" and told of his own childhood growing up in a conservative Mormon home before moving to California.
"I heard the story of Harvey Milk and it gave me hope ... to live my life, it gave me the hope to one day I could live my life openly as who I am and that maybe even I could fall in love and one day get married," he said, receiving warm applause from the audience at the Academy Awards.
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