"Yes, we have set a wedding date. How do I feel about it? I obviously feel like it's long overdue. I think someday people will look back on this like women not having the right to vote and segregation and anything else that seems ridiculous that we don't all have the same rights." — Ellen DeGeneres at the Daytime Emmy Awards, June 20.
"We've gone from Jerry Falwell hissing at Ellen 'Degenerate' for coming out on prime time to the Republican candidate for president coming on to her daytime chat show to wish her well in her pending nuptials." — Syndicated gay press columnist Chris Crain, June 25.
"Sexuality is a tricky question. You get into transgender—it embraces all of that—and you have people's fear and dislike of things that are different. Nobody is more different to an average person than a transgender person, and that makes them nervous." — Gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., to New York's Village Voice, June 17.
"Barney [ Frank ] is a hero in many ways, but he's hung up on trans issues. I was once too, so I know all these bullshit arguments inside out." — Former National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman to New York's Village Voice, June 17.
"I had a gay kid say to me the other day: 'Men and women on death row can marry people on the outside. They're allowed to get married. And gays want the same rights as people on death row.' I thought that was pretty good thinking. ... It's just an interesting thing that gays don't have the same rights as people on death row." — Newspaper columnist Liz Smith in an article published by The Women on the Web, wowowow.com, May 28.
"A gay woman named Ellen DeGeneres has the most popular talk show in America. She even outstrips Oprah Winfrey. Doesn't this say something? I think people are really kind of conflicted. Sometimes they're sneaky and fuzzy when it comes to homosexuality. They go crazy over one demonstration of it, and then they'll ignore another." — Newspaper columnist Liz Smith in an article published by The Women on the Web, wowowow.com, May 28.
"The [ 2008 International Mr. Leather contest ] ceremony opened with a genial speech by IML founder Chuck Renslow, who set the tone for the evening by assuring us that ' ( Leather play is ) still a power exchange. It's still about trust and learning.' ( Throughout Renslow's speech, several guys in the audience actually said 'Amen,' while others raised their hands as if in prayer, tent revival-style. Now that I think of it, the whole IML experience reminded me just a bit of my fundamentalist Promise Keepers days back in the mid-'90s. Except, of course, with less laying-on-of-hands and more fisting. ) " — Chris Jensen writing in The San Francisco Examiner, May 26.
"In '75 they offered me the cover of Time to come out—because they needed a gay story, not because they wanted me to come out or because they were going to do anything particularly correct about gay life. ( But ) I didn't want to be known as a gay comedian; I wanted to be known as a human comedian. I don't think gay people's experience as humans is so different from any other humans'. I was never secretive, but I never held a press conference." — Lily Tomlin to the Oregon gay newspaper Just Out, May 30.
"God knows that a drag queen on roller skates makes for much more interesting photos and video footage than the Gay Alums of Yale or the hundreds of families who push strollers down 5th Avenue or the Gay Officers Action League, the organization of gay and lesbian law enforcement personnel in NYC." — Former GLAAD Executive Director Joan Garry writing at The Huffington Post, June 29.
—Assistance: Bill Kelley