"I'm striving to be an example of normalcy. Because I'm noticed as an actor, people are aware of what's happening in my life. ... I'm a big proponent of monogamous relationships regardless of sexuality, and I'm proud of how the nation is steering toward that. Then you can look around and say,"I really deeply feel like I'm in love with this person, there are people who feel the same thing, and those models are normal.' The "normal' couples were sort of in the shadows for the past 15 or 20 years because you sort of needed other people to come forward and speak out.--Gay actor Neil Patrick Harris ( pictured ) from TV's How I Met Your Mother to Out magazine, September issue.
"The pull of precedent is powerful but scarcely all-powerful when a shift of personnel or perspective breaks the spell, allowing the forces of change to exert their counterpull. The road from Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 decision that dismissed a claim of gay rights as, at best, facetious,' to Lawrence v. Texas, which 17 years later located the privacy rights of gay men and lesbians at the heart of constitutional due process, was paved, I have no doubt, by the justices' experience of knowing gay men and women in their personal and professional lives.--Retiring New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse writing in the July 13 edition of the paper.
"The tipping point has finally been reached, and there's no going back. Gay marriage as an issue, as a hot button, as a nasty right-wing political weapon will soon vanish into the dustbin of history. ... While the brutal Bush regime tried to clamp down and convince everyone that clinging to homophobia and Biblical literalism was actually a nice way to live, all it did was create a nasty little speed bump." -- San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford, June 11.
"We've ridded our state laws of the last vestige of discrimination against same-sex couples, and we once again lead the way for equality for all people."-- MassEquality Executive Director Marc Solomon on July 29 after the Massachusetts Legislature overturned a 1913 law that prohibited people from other states from getting married there if the marriage wouldn't have been allowed where they live. The bill, signed into law by Gov. Deval Patrick on July 31, effectively lifted a ban on marriages by same-sex couples from most other states.
"I think ( when ) 15 years go by on any personnel policy, it's appropriate to take another look at it, see how it's working, ask the hard questions, hear from the military. Start with a Pentagon study. ... The policy was the right policy for the right time, and times change. It's appropriate to take another look." --Former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn speaking in Atlanta June 3 about the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that bans gays from serving openly. Nunn was one of the lawmakers most responsible for the passage of the 1993 law.
"I had designers throwing clothes at me and then you realize you have to go to the fashion shows. Which seems very fun and good, until you realize you're in this kind of prostitutal exchange ... I woke up and thought, "This is ridiculous.'" --Out singer k.d. lang to Britain's Guardian newspaper, July 16.
"Mmmmmmmm. Anderson ( Cooper ) . He's dreamy. Just dreamy. I've been a fan of his since season 1 of The Mole. I just thought he was so cool when he talked in this cool, low, secret-agent voice..."If you can accomplish this task...' Listen, no one can tell anyone how big their steps should be or when they can take them. You can take issue with someone making overtly denying statements, and you can take issue with people straight-up presenting themselves as someone that they're not--because I think that's kind of shady and not very stand-up. But you can't fault someone for going through the process at their own time." --Gay actor Neil Patrick Harris from TV's How I Met Your Mother to Out magazine, September issue.
"The only thing Republicans really have going for them this year is fear, fear of terrorists coming over the ocean and fear of immigrants coming over the border and fear of homosexuals coming over your back." --Bill Maher, host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, to the Portland, Ore., gay newspaper Just Out, July 3.
"Is it ... not fascinating in this day and age that our most powerful capitalist companies, those most associated with mainstream, dumbed-down, unhealthy, rather uninformed Republican Americana, even these megacorps are now openly and rather shamelessly supporting gay rights and tolerance?" -- San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford, July 11.
"Everyone is so post-gay now, it's probably not the done thing to shed a tear over the last night of G-A-Y at the Astoria in Central London this Saturday. With its simple delight in fluffy disco and boozy, cruisey merriment, G-A-Y seems a dinosaur in the modern landscape of gay indie clubs, mixed clubs and the pansexual, drag-tastic dives of Shoreditch, where the beestung-lipped boy in eyeshadow probably has a girlfriend who's cool with it all." --Tim Teeman writing in The Times of London, July 23.
"I would be a fabulous gay man because I'm funny. And I love to decorate." --Comedian Joan Rivers to syndicated Canadian gay columnist Richard Burnett, July 10.
--Assistance: Bill Kelley
