Melissa Etheridge. Photo by Rex Wockner_____
'Being gay is not an identity; that's the bottom line. It's a sideline. But through nobody's fault and everybody's fault it's become a subject for identity, so you run away from mainstream culture into a kind of offbeat culture, and then the offbeat culture becomes a little mainstream culture of its own—just as brutal, actually, as the culture you thought you were leaving behind.' — Actor Rupert Everett to Out magazine, March issue.
'There are stereotypes about drag. You know, that you are lip-syncing and getting drunk in bars. But when I am in the drag world, I see this very huge talented group of people that are very diverse. I celebrate all of that. Even the bad drag.' — Actor Clinton Leupp ( aka Coco Peru ) to the Palm Springs gay magazine The Bottom Line, Feb. 2.
'I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way. As an individual, I would not want [ acceptance of gay behavior ] to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else's wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior.' — Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace speaking in support of the military's anti-gay 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy, to the Chicago Tribune, March 12.
'I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word faggot, so I'm ... kind of at an impasse—can't really talk about Edwards.' — Pundit Ann Coulter addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference, March 2.
'C'mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.' — Coulter in a March 3 e-mail to The New York Times.
'I do want to point out one thing that has been driving me crazy with the media—how they keep describing Mitt Romney's position as being pro-gays, and that's going to upset the right-wingers. Well, you know, screw you! I'm not anti-gay. We're against gay marriage. I don't want gays to be discriminated against. I don't know why all gays aren't Republican. I think we have the pro-gay positions, which is anti-crime and for tax cuts. Gays make a lot of money and they're victims of crime. No, they are! They should be with us.' — Pundit Ann Coulter addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference, March 2.
'I was kissing her because that's what you do, you kiss your loved one when you win an Oscar. That's what I grew up believing.' — Singer Melissa Etheridge backstage at the Oscars Feb. 25 after she kissed wife Tammy Lynn Michaels before accepting the best-original-song trophy for 'I Need to Wake Up' from Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.
'This is the only naked man that will ever be in my bedroom.' — Singer Melissa Etheridge holding her trophy backstage at the Oscars Feb. 25. She won the best-original-song statuette for I Need to Wake Up from Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.
'Even today, when I write books that are not centrally involved with gay life, these books are put into the gay shelves of the bookstore. I don't like labels. I don't like being called a gay writer. I'm gay—proudly so—and I'm a writer, a writer who's amassed quite a body of work.' — Author John Rechy to the Palm Springs gay magazine The Bottom Line, Feb. 16.
'It definitely is the gayest show on TV: We have a kid who's into musical theater; Marc, who is totally gay; and Daniel's brother who is a transsexual.' — Ugly Betty actor Michael Urie, who plays Wilhelmina Slater's assistant, Marc, to the Dallas Voice, Feb. 23.
—Assistance: Bill Kelley