GAY GROUP BACKS BRAD AND ANGELINA ENGAGEMENT

While some saw the announcement of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s engagement as a betrayal of the gay community, a California LGBTI rights group is fully behind the star couple’s marriage.

Last Friday, Pitt’s manager Cynthia Pett-Dante confirmed in a statement that the couple had gotten engaged. “It is a promise for the future, and their kids are very happy. There’s no date set at this time,” she said.

The couple, who’ve been together for seven years and are raising six kids, had previously stated that they would not tie the knot until everyone in America had the right to get married.

In January, however, Pitt hinted that they were likely to break their promise on the issue.

“We made this declaration some time ago that we weren’t going to do it till everyone can. But I don’t think we’ll be able to hold out. It means so much to my kids, and they ask a lot. And it means something to me, too, to make that kind of commitment,” he said.

The Equality California group said that it understands the couple’s decision to finally wed.

“Marriage is something that says ‘we’re a family’ in a way that nothing else can,” Rebekah Orr, Communications Director for Equality California told TMZ. “No one has to deny that for themselves or their family to prove they are an ally and supporter of equality.”

Pitt has been an active supporter of the LGBT community in the U.S. In 2008 he donated $100,000 towards the campaign against California’s Proposition 8, which barred same-sex marriage in California.

When same-sex marriage was legalised in the state of New York last year, he spoke out in favour of a federal measure to legalise same-sex marriage.