"I don't think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I'm gay. I've been living in Los Angeles for eight years as a gay man. I've been at clubs drunk making out with somebody in the corner. ... Right after the finale, I almost started talking about it to the reporters, but I thought, 'I'm going to wait for Rolling Stone, that will be cooler.' ... I didn't want the Clay Aiken thing and the celebrity-magazine bullshit. I need to be able to explain myself in context. ... I'm proud of my sexuality. I embrace it. It's just another part of me. ... I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader." — American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert ( pictured ) to Rolling Stone, June 9.
"The general view, which I shared, was that no one who wanted to get elected president ( in 2008 ) could have been a supporter of same-sex marriage. On the other hand, things have moved very far since then, and I'm more optimistic about 2012." — Gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., to GQ, June 12.
"You know, I think it's hilarious right now that the world is turning to beauty queens for the answers for this. I think it's an important issue and I think that it's one that I don't think I can win a battle. I don't want to be any more divisive than it's already become. ... I don't think that I have the right or anybody has a right to tell somebody who they can or can't love. And I think this is a civil rights issue. And I think the right thing to do is let the voters decide." — Tami Farrell, the new Miss California USA, to Fox News on June 11. After prodding by Fox's Neil Cavuto, Farrell very reluctantly acknowledged that she, too, believes marriage is between a man and a woman. Anti-gay-marriage activist Carrie Prejean was fired as Miss California USA on June 10, allegedly for violating her contract, not for her anti-gay-marriage activism.
"What would happen if you crossed that creepy 1960s horror classic 'The Village of the Damned' with the Broadway staple 'A Chorus Line'? You don't need to use your imagination. It's there waiting for you on YouTube under the title 'Gathering Storm': a 60-second ad presenting homosexuality as a national threat second only to terrorism. ... Far from terrifying anyone, 'Gathering Storm' has become, unsurprisingly, an Internet camp classic." — New York Times columnist Frank Rich, April 18.
"Most of our nation wants our nation to succeed. Most people are ready to move on to the future, not live in the past. Most of the old-school Republicans are scared shitless of that future." — Meghan McCain, John McCain's daughter, addressing the gay Log Cabin Republicans' convention, April 18.
"Gay marriage is a foregone conclusion. It's a done deal. It's just a matter of time. For the next generation in particular, equal rights for gays is not even a question or a serious issue, much less a sinful hysterical conundrum that can only be answered by terrified Mormons and confused old people and inane referendums funded by same. It's just obvious, inevitable, a given." — San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford, May 27.
"We ( California ) may be a die-hard blue state overall, full of revolutionary ideas and world-class academics, Nobel Laureates and wondrous alternative belief systems, but we are also messy and flat-footed and just too damn big for our own good, and our southern half is packed to the Orange County rafters with piles of aging social conservatives and religious zealots with far too little spiritual/sexual awareness and far too much money." — San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford, May 27.
"I'd be happy to go and deny it, because I'm not ( gay ) . But by denying it, I'm saying there is something shameful about it, and there isn't anything shameful. The questions about sexuality I find more here in America than anywhere else, because it's a big hang-up and defines what people think about themselves and others. It's not a big issue in Australia." — Actor Hugh Jackman to Parade magazine, April 26.
"The gays aren't going to break marriage. Think about it: They're gay. They'll probably spruce it up and make it a little nicer." — Eric McCormack, Will from Will & Grace, speaking from the stage at Meet in the Middle for Equality, May 30 in Fresno, Calif.
—Assistance: Bill Kelley
