'Losing a campaign is no fun, but it's not like losing a limb.' — Tammy Duckworth on her losing effort to become a Democratic member of the Illinois Congressional delegation, according to the Chicago Tribune. She lost her legs in the Iraq war.
'It made me angry that here's someone preaching [ against ] gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex. ... Reading some of the things he was saying about gay marriage and homosexuality, I started getting pissed. I've been out my whole life. I have a lot of gay friends, and I've seen a lot of gay people suffer.' — Mike Jones, 49, of Denver, a prostitute and fitness consultant, outing the president of the National Association of Evangelicals ( NAE ) , Ted Haggard, 50, of Colorado Springs, who Jones says was his client for three years, paying about $200 per visit for monthly sex. Haggard stepped down from the NAE presidency and from leadership of his local church on Nov. 2. He eventually said he got a massage from Jones and bought crystal meth from him, but claimed he never took the meth or had sex with Jones. Later, on Nov. 5, Haggard admitted that he is 'guilty of sexual immorality,' but did not provide details. Jones says Haggard used meth when the two had sex, but did not buy it from him.
'Besides the sheer scale of the hypocrisy, the Ted Haggard scandal doesn't tell us much we don't already know about closeted gay or bisexual men; closet cases will take enormous risks to get their needs met and will often do great harm to themselves and to those they profess to love. What's new in the Haggard scandal—perhaps we should call it a flameout—is the refusal of Mike Jones, a former male prostitute, to honor the callboy's code of silence, the omertà of gay hookerdom.' — Gay writer Dan Savage in The New York Times.
'Back in the bad old days—the mythical 1950s, the era social conservatives pine for—most gay men were closeted, which made it relatively easy for them to arrange discreet trysts. You could rely on the discretion of your sex partners because they were relying on yours. It was the era of mutually assured destruction, both in terms of nuclear warfare and gay sex. Your partner couldn't reveal your secret without revealing his own. ... So why did Mike Jones speak out? Because today it is arguably more shameful and damaging to be a hypocritical closet case than it is to be a sex worker. Even those delighted by Mr. Haggard's disgrace—disclosure: I count myself among their number—ache for his five children, all suffering now for the sins of their father. And let me be clear: their father's sin is not his sexual orientation, but his deceit and hypocrisy. His sin is the closet.' — Dan Savage.
' [ I ] f [ the Rev. Ted ] Haggard's unblinking congregation could sit and listen to such a liturgical Liberace week after week and not realize they were in the presence of someone who makes Barry Manilow in a full-length mink look butch, they really need to recalibrate their ability to detect prescription-strength doses of flamboyance.' — Mrs. Betty Bowers, 'America's Best Christian,' Nov. 5. See bettybowers.com .
'The public eye has always been kind to me, and until recently I have been able to live a pretty normal life. Now it seems there is speculation and interest in my private life and relationships. So, rather than ignore those who choose to publish their opinions without actually talking to me, I am happy to dispel any rumors or misconceptions and am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest and feel most fortunate to be working with wonderful people in the business I love.' — Actor Neil Patrick Harris from TV's Doogie Howser, M.D. and How I Met Your Mother, to People magazine, Nov. 3.
'If the last month has taught us anything about the Republican Party, it is that homophobia is campaign strategy, not conviction. Congressmen who trust their careers to gay staffers vote for laws to enshrine second-class citizenship for gays in the Constitution. Gay appointees and their partners are treated as married people at official ceremonies and social gatherings. Then whenever an election rolls around, the whole team pretends it's on a mission to save America from gay marriage. Mr. Bush and his faithful acolytes seem perfectly willing to stoke fears that create division and sorrow in a country that doesn't need any more of either. The president has just a little more than two years left in office. You'd think that for once he'd want to consider devoting his time to making things better instead of worse.' — New York Times editorial, Oct. 29.
'We believe in family values, we believe values are important, and we believe marriage is a fundamental institution of civilization. Yesterday, in New Jersey, we had another activist court issue a ruling that raises doubts about the institution of marriage. I believe that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, and I believe it's a sacred institution that is critical to the health of our society and the well-being of families, and it must be defended.' — President George W. Bush, Oct. 25.
'This is not what I wanted [ having sex at adult bookstores and highway reststops ] . What I wanted was an open, monogamous, committed relationship, which I have now. But this is all that I felt that I could have. Ultimately it was, for me, unhealthy and self-destructive. ... It only compounded the shame which I had accepted from [ my ] faith.' — Former New Jersey governor James McGreevey to San Diego's Gay & Lesbian Times, Nov. 2.
