"I have love in my life, a soul mateabsolutely. When someone asked me why Angie and I don't get married, I replied, 'Maybe we'll get married when it's legal for everyone else.' I stand by that, although I took a lot of flak for saying ithate mail from religious groups. I believe everyone should have the same rights. They say gay marriage ruins families and hurts kids. Well, I've had the privilege of seeing my gay friends being parents and watching their kids grow up in a loving environment." Actor Brad Pitt ( pictured ) , to Parade magazine, Aug. 9.
"It's ridiculous that Prop 8 took away gay people's right to marry! I have no understanding of that kind of hatred. Maybe it's fear of difference or of the unknown. If you feel belittled, maybe you need someone else to belittle to feel powerful. It's the only way I know how to explain it. You've got religion telling you what to think about homosexuality, about marriage. They say homosexuality is a choice, a lifestyle, something you can be cured of, and that isn't true. But if you're tucked away and have no friends who are gay, you'll believe what the preachers say. Just think of it in terms of being in lovehow would you feel if someone told you that you couldn't be with the person you loved?" Actor Brad Pitt, to Parade magazine, Aug. 9.
"These cuts could not come at a worse time and are so severe that they even eliminate funding for viral-load testing! Expecting us to provide appropriate medical care to people with HIV and AIDS without the ability to do viral-load testing is like expecting a surgeon to remove a tumor without being allowed to do an X-ray or MRI to determine its location. It's outrageous!" Lorri Jean, CEO of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, July 29 after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decimated the budget of the state Office of AIDS, terminating, among much else, all state funding for viral-load tests, which tell doctors if HIV drugs are working or not.
" ( Barack Obama ) has told me, and he has told ... staff in the White House that pressure's a good thing, so people should continue to put pressure on him." Openly gay Steve Hildebrand, who was Obama's deputy national campaign director and recently spoke with the president one-on-one at the White House about gay issues, to this column, July 5.
"Since ACT UP we have done nothing on a mass scale to exploit the potential of passive resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience, the most effective, proven techniques of social action refined in the last century. Aside from a few rogue players who've applied for marriage licenses and small bands of activists like Soulforce ( who've been arrested for trespassing on Christian college campuses where they try to instigate conversations about homosexuality ) , we have not even tried. When gay soldiers get kicked out of the military, why don't they refuse to leave? Why don't the rest of us go to support them? Why haven't we tried?" Michael Joseph Gross writing in the September issue of The Advocate."It's gay. If one more person asks me if I have a Twitter, I'm going to tell them, 'Twitter this dick, motherfucker.' I don't have anything to say, and what I have to say is not that relevant. Anything that is relevant, I'm going to bottle it up and then squeeze it onto a record somewhere." Rapper Kid Rock to Rolling Stone, July 29.
"Thanks to the fact that everyone's a blogger these days, I don't even have to write my own anymore. I can go out for a night on the town, google myself the next day, and then just run someone else's account of what happened to me." Gay Village Voice columnist Michael Musto on his blog, July 31.
Assistance: Bill Kelley