'It will encourage dishonesty, fuel homophobia and lead to Vatican sex spies snooping on trainee priests. If these rules had existed in the past, many existing archbishops and cardinals would have never been allowed to enter the priesthood. Given the high proportion of gay clergy in senior positions in the Vatican, this new policy is rank hypocrisy.' — Peter Tatchell, leader of the London gay group OutRage!, after the Roman Catholic Church announced a ban on seminarians 'who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support so-called gay culture,' Nov. 29.
'We urge gay priests and seminarians to come out and denounce this affront to their faith, vocation and dignity. We call upon all other priests and bishops of good conscience to stand up for their brothers. And, most importantly, we call upon Catholics to vociferously reject this shameful instruction.' — National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman after the Roman Catholic Church announced a ban on seminarians 'who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support so-called gay culture,' Nov. 29.
'I'm at this reflective moment in my own life. ... [ H ] istorians are going to look back at this moment and ask, What did the leadership of LGBT organizations do? What did individuals do? And shame on Log Cabin if it doesn't speak out against bigotry and intolerance within our own party, and shame on us if we don't call on our fellow gay and lesbian conservatives to find the courage to come out, particularly if they are in positions of power in Washington. ... If every gay and lesbian conservative came out tomorrow morning, the road to full equality would be a very short one. It would be over in two to five years.' — Log Cabin Republicans President Patrick Guerriero in a Nov. 27 interview with this column.
'Most homos I know ... have picked up a bunch of nasty habits on their quest for true love. True love refuses to come, so we look for a temporary fix from a strange bedfellow whose crotch provides us with a brief form of validation, self-worth, recognition, affection and all the good shit that we associate with someone true. It tastes good at first, but the bitter aftertaste lingers. There's no significance, so we put the heart in check and focus on feeding the flesh instead. Unfortunately the flesh is never satisfied, so we have more meaningless sex until sex loses its meaning, and we lose our means to connect with anyone potentially true.' — Columnist Paulo Murillo in the Los Angeles gay newspaper FAB!, Dec. 2.
'While I can conclusively say I've never encountered a gay couple that's been together any significant amount of time and been totally monogamous, I have encountered many that screw around and act like they're monogamous. Let's stop all the lying.' — Columnist Chris Dupuis in the Toronto gay newspaper Xtra!, Nov. 10.
'I've done sex scenes with women I haven't been attracted to at all and some with women I probably shouldn't be as attracted to as I was. I'd say Heath fits somewhere in between.' — Brokeback Mountain star Jake Gyllenhaal to the San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 30. Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger play cowboy lovers in the film.
'From my perspective, I only wanted to do a good movie. I didn't care if their careers were doomed after that.' — Ang Lee, director of the 'gay cowboy movie' Brokeback Mountain, in reference to actors Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, to the San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 30.
'I saw a very attractive man, we started to talk, and we knew immediately that that was that. Our internal worlds were identical. We read the same books. We saw the same films. We spoke in a similar way. I was 37. I had had earlier relationships, so I could compare, but he was only 25, and in any case he had something adult [ about him ] , and he saw he was like me. We went to bed on the first night, which I didn't always do, and I don't recommend that everyone have sex on the first night, but in our case it was the correct thing to do. Since then, essentially, we haven't been apart.' — Denmark's openly gay ambassador to Israel, Carsten Damsgaard, talking to the Tel Aviv daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on Nov. 30 about the night 12 years ago when he met his partner, Esben Karmark.
