"I find bringing the country to the brink of war unilaterally five weeks before an election frightening." -- Barbra Streisand who came out of "retirement" Sept. 29 to sing nine songs at a Democratic fundraiser in Los Angeles.
"Ever since [ Rosie O'Donnell ] quit her talk show and came out as a lesbian in March, she has appeared to be undergoing a transformation that has affected her professionally and personally. Immediately after leaving the air, she did a couple of profanity-laced nightclub acts, denouncing her former Queen of Nice image and publicly attacking celebrities. She has been spotted out in public, drinking and being loud. She has been the subject of tabloid stories about wrestling with her weight and suffering from depression--two conditions she acknowledges she has battled. Then there was the magazine. She says she quit because she just couldn't seem to work things out with her editor." -- USA Today, Sept. 23.
"She used to, on TV, portray herself in one way. She was like this nice, funny, sweet woman. All of sudden, she's now like this ballsy, butchy biker, you know, stand-up comedienne. ... She could just buy a biker magazine and call that Rosie." -- Openly gay CNN anchor Anderson Cooper on the air Sept. 18, according to the Southern Voice newspaper, Sept. 27.
"I do like [ not having my show ] , but it's hard to say that without people not thinking that you're ungrateful. I'm so grateful. It's given me and my family everything I could ever dream of. ... But that's only part of who I am and after a while it ... became a little oppressive. Everyone thought, 'Oh, you're so nice.' I'm not that nice. I'm a very biting, caustic, sarcastic person." -- Rosie O'Donnell as quoted by the New York Post, Oct. 10.
"I think you can live your life as a gay person in the way that I did--never hiding it from anyone, attending every event with Kelli, never pretending to have a boyfriend. These people were going, 'She was pretending' [ to be straight ] .' I don't feel like I ever pretended anything." -- O'Donnell as quoted by the New York Post, Oct. 10.
"The collective homophobic hysteria was absolutely terrifying. It was like what white racists did to the black civil rights marchers in the Deep South during the 1960s. For a moment, I was in fear of my life. The hatred in those young people's eyes was frightening. Some of them looked like they would kill me if they had the chance." -- Gay activist Peter Tatchell who picketed the Music Of Black Origin Awards in London Oct. 1 to protest lyrics by some reggae nominees that urge murder of homosexuals. Tatchell was set upon by 25 reggae fans shouting 'Kill the batty boy' and 'Kill chi chi men' [ Jamaican for 'faggot' ] . They threw coins, beer cans and lighters at him and kicked, punched and spit on him, he said.
"I think you can't exercise tolerance intelligently without discrimination. If you don't discriminate, how are you going to decide what to tolerate and what not to tolerate?" -- Boston University Chancellor John Silber, who recently shut down the Gay-Straight Alliance at BU Academy high school --saying it encouraged "homosexual militancy" and "evangelism," as quoted by the Boston Globe, Sept. 29.
"Both approaches to the gay movement --individual rights vs. social change--have long co-existed, so the critiques of NGLTF-style politics aren't new. But at this point, the liberal social-change model seems to have been eclipsed by the pragmatic civil-rights one, with NGLTF now the last significant vestige of the lesbian and gay liberation movement of the 1970s." -- Q Syndicate columnist Paula Martinac in an October filing.
"Complaints that gay lefties can be--and have been--self-righteous, judgmental, patronizing, and P.C.-to-an-extreme are in many instances legitimate. To be honest, the dogmatic 'screeching' of the gay left ( to quote [ one critic ] ) has alienated many in our community and made gay progressives an easy target for derision." -- Martinac.
"I don't support homosexuality because I'm not homosexual, but I don't hate gay people because the more guys a gay man gets is more girls for me. ... Jamaicans come right out and say, 'We don't deal with homosexuals.' ... That's why the music is homophobic? I don't understand." -- Dancehall megastar Beenie Man to the Associate Press, Oct. 2.
"For years, [ Saddam ] Hussein has not admitted two things. One is U.N. inspectors and two is that his mustache makes him look gay. It makes me wonder what else he's hiding." -- Politically Incorrect's Bill Maher to Detroit's Metro Times, Oct. 2.
"Tinseltown tittletattle has it warbler Barbra Streisand, a close friend of former President Bill Clinton, is considering a run for political office." -- Michael Sneed's column in the Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 3.
"Record companies are reacting in silly ways, hysterical, rather than trying to work in the new technology. Having music available for downloading has increased my sales and introduces people to my music. It's so difficult to get exposure nowadays for any of us. It's the death of the industry, to hear them tell it. I object ... to the audience being held responsible for the sorry state of the music industry is in right now. ... We need to correct the problems in the business before we start pointing stony fingers at the world." -- Lesbian singer Janis Ian ( Society's Child, At Seventeen ) to the Naples [ Florida ] Daily News, Oct. 4.
"In the beginning, I was the only openly gay comic in the world, not really, but that's what it felt like. I was performing for straight audiences. It was a very big deal. You couldn't just say you were gay. You had to address every topic that was in their head. With the gay audiences, you were one of their few voices, so you had to be the gay cheerleader. You couldn't just drift off and talk about your dogs or your mom. ... I was OK about being super, ultra gay and being the voice for gay people. But there is a freedom now to be able to talk about anything. That, as a performer, is way more fun for me." -- Comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer to Nashville's The Tennessean, Oct. 5.
