'Susan cooks dinner; I make drinks. We stay up all night talking or watching movies. Since we don't have TV, we watch movies on the laptop. I do this whole arcane thing where I get cords and connect the laptop and the speakers to an outlet. It takes 10 minutes.' — Openly lesbian MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow ( pictured ) to The New York Times, Oct. 17.
'It is unacceptable to see women who love the male lifestyle, including dressing in the clothes men wear. ( It ) becomes clearer when they start to have sex with someone of the same gender, that is woman and woman. ( We ) have decided ... that such acts are forbidden and banned.' — Abdul Shukor Husin, chairman of Malaysia's National Fatwa Council, after it issued a fatwa Oct. 23 banning 'tomboyism' and lesbian sex. Gay-male sex is banned by civil law.
'The house mostly reflects Susan's style, but I have to put my stamp on things. Once, I found a sculpture of a big, fat squirrel holding a reflector. You're supposed to put it at the end of your driveway. We have it near the kitchen table; it's the house mascot.' — Openly lesbian MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow to The New York Times, Oct. 17.
'It took years for me to realize that I was gay, years more to tell others and more time yet to form any kind of stable emotional bond with another man. Because my sexuality had emerged in solitude—and without any link to the idea of an actual relationship—it was hard later to reconnect sex to love and self-esteem. It still is. But I persevered, each relationship slowly growing longer than the last, learning in my 20s and 30s what my straight friends had found out in their teens.' — Gay writer Andrew Sullivan, on his blog, Nov. 1, in a reprint of an essay he wrote for Time magazine in 2004.
'Oh, cricket? It's a fag game. What are you, nuts?' — Comedian Jerry Lewis, when asked his opinion of the game cricket at a news conference in Sydney, Australia, Oct. 24. Lewis then reportedly flounced around effeminately handling an imaginary cricket bat.
'Until 'marriage' has its proper day in the Supreme Court of the United States of America you can count on decades of June and November state by state elections where bigots—by whatever nom de plume—will have some proposition or amendment on the ballot that would deny everyone basic human dignity and rights. Get used to it. Get used to fundraisers and get-out-the-vote rallies and fighting the good fight.' — Poet Rod McKuen writing in the Palm Springs magazine The BottomLine, Oct. 24.
'The idea that being gay could ruin your career in Hollywood is more old school than reruns of Will & Grace. Ellen DeGeneres has the biggest talk show on TV after Oprah, and it's been a long decade since she broke down the closet door as the first openly gay sitcom star ( Ugly Betty, Gossip Girl, even The Sopranos had a gay character ) . Plus, ( Clay ) Aiken got his start on what's arguably the gayest show on TV—American Idol. Aiken's announcement ( that he's gay ) almost overshadowed the other gay news of the week. Lindsay Lohan confirmed she's been dating a 31-year-old woman named Samantha Ronson for 'a very long time.'' — Ramin Setoodeh writing at Newsweek.com, Sept. 25.
—Assistance: Bill Kelley
