'What can I say? I'm the luckiest girl in the world. She's officially off the market. No one else gets her. And now she'll cook and clean for me.' — Ellen DeGeneres, who married actress Portia de Rossi ( pictured ) on Aug. 16, to People magazine, Aug. 19.
'About the only guy who seems to have done really well these last eight years is a guy with a private jet and so many homes that he loses count. In just the last eight years, the Republicans have cut the value of the U.S. dollar almost in half and added $4 trillion to our children's debt. They've done this in just eight years. And now they want four more? As an investor, I yearn for a president who looks to financial heroes, not corporate lobbyists, for economic advice. As a gay man, I yearn for a president who believes in equal rights for all Americans. But most of all, as an American, I yearn for a president that the world can root for and be inspired by. Because having much of the world on our side again would not only be good for our national security, it would be good for business. Vote Obama, my fellow Democrats. Because, boy, do we ever need a change.' — Democratic National Committee Treasurer Andrew Tobias speaking to the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 25.
'We support the full inclusion of all families, including same-sex couples, in the life of our nation, and support equal responsibility, benefits, and protections. We will enact a comprehensive bipartisan employment non-discrimination act. We oppose the Defense of Marriage Act and all attempts to use this issue to divide us.' — From the 2008 Democratic Party platform. DOMA prohibits the federal government from treating same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose and purports to exempt states from having to recognize other states' same-sex marriages.
'As a normative way of socializing for gay men, online cruising is a disaster. We need to recognize its effects—including its tendency to isolate us, encourage objectification, and diminish our sense of life's nonsexual possibilities—as disasters. We need to recognize that too many of us, too much of the time, are cruising online because it is easier and feels safer than thinking about the love we are missing and the power we do not have. Too many of us, too much of the time, are cruising online because it's easier and feels safer than mustering the courage, patience, discipline, and imagination required to help ourselves and each other become the men that, in our strongest moments, we want to be.' — Journalist and author Michael Joseph Gross writing in Out magazine, September issue.
'I think Pride is less politicized sometimes than it used to be, and that's probably a good sign because I think it's truly a celebration. It was before as well, but in older Prides there was a little more of a political slant. There was a lot of activism to be done, and there still is, but I think because we made a lot of headway we're able to relax a bit.' — Singer Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls to Seattle Gay News, June 27.
—Assistance: Bill Kelley