' [ M ] y biggest criticism of the Republican Party has always been that we have lost a lot of members of the Republican Party here in California [ including ] gays and lesbians. [ W ] e need to go and be a party that is more inclusive. ... That's the power we have to get inside the party and to create the changes, rather than just complaining about it. ... The gay and lesbian movement, and the members, can have a tremendous impact.' — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ( pictured ) speaking at the Log Cabin Republicans National Convention April 11 in San Diego.
'I don't know what will happen professionally ... that is the fear, but I guess I can't really be concerned about what will happen, because it's my truth. There is this desire in L.A. to wonder who you are and what's been blaring for me for the last three years is how can I be most authentic to myself—so this is the first time I am speaking about it [ being gay ] in this way.' — Actor Luke MacFarlane, who plays Scotty Wandell, character Kevin Walker's boyfriend on ABC-TV's Brothers & Sisters, to Toronto's Globe and Mail, April 15. The newspaper said the couple will marry in the May 11 season finale.
'The gay press may feel like I'm not giving them enough love. But basically, all press feels that way at all times. Obviously, when you've got limited amount of time, you've got so many outlets. We tend not to do a whole bunch of specialized press. ... But I haven't been silent on gay issues. What's happened is, I speak oftentimes to gay issues to a public general audience.' — Barack Obama to Advocate.com, April 10.
'I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe that homosexuality is destructive to society.' — Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council, speaking against a pending bill that grants immigration rights to gay Americans' foreign partners, to Medill News Service, March 19.
'I think you can judge the level of success for any group of people by the reaction against it. And given the reaction of the so-called Christian Right—I would put that in quotes because I don't believe they're Christians at all—I would have to say that [ gay ] people have been wildly successful.' — Rubyfruit Jungle author Rita Mae Brown to Time magazine, March 18.
'I would say that Cuba has homophobia lite, not aggressive. We don't have cases of persons murdered or beaten because they're gay, as happens in Europe or the USA. It's true there was a more difficult period in the 1960s and '70s, but then there was a rejection of homosexuality all over the world. [ Now ] we have come to recognize also the diversity of sexual orientations.' — Mariela Castro Espín, director of Cuba's National Center for Sex Education and daughter of President Raúl Castro, to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, March 27.
'I live in the Castro, in San Francisco, and everyone knows what that means. The streets are teeming with homosexuals. It's just like in those horror-movie fundamentalist videos: Everyone's in leather with their bits and butts on display; murderous Baby Jane drag queens run amok day and night; gay sex is happening in the streets at all hours. There's a huge lube slide at the corner of 18th and Castro by the Bank of America, where of course, virgin straight men are sacrificed should they wander haplessly into our own little Sodom-by-the-Bay.' — Violet Blue writing at SFGate.com, April 2.
—Assistance: Bill Kelley
