"It has been quite a journey for ( Prop 8 federal case lawyer ) Ted Olson. He's gone from being the conservative lawyer who helped crown W. by winning the Bush v. Gore case before the Supreme Court, to being a lesbian. 'Maureen,' he told me in his gravelly voice, 'one of the biggest lesbian groups in this country told me I'm already an honorary lesbian.'" — New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Jan. 16.
"We're going to explain why allowing same-sex couples to have that same right that the rest of us have is not going to hurt heterosexual marriages. It has no point at all except some people don't want to recognize gays and lesbians as normal, as human beings." — Prop 8 federal case lawyer Ted Olson to The New York Times, Jan. 16. The case is ongoing in San Francisco.
"There are now three classes of Californians: heterosexual couples who can get married, divorced, and remarried, if they wish; same-sex couples who cannot get married but can live together in domestic partnerships; and same-sex couples who are now married but who, if they divorce, cannot remarry. This is an irrational system, it is discriminatory, and it cannot stand." — Federal Prop 8 case lawyer Ted Olson writing in Newsweek, Jan. 9. The trial in the lawsuit arguing that Prop 8 violates the U.S. Constitution began Jan. 11 in San Francisco.
"The single biggest reason Obama's hope bubble burst is because of the unintended convergence of left and right opinion-making. The cauldron of opinion that churns incessantly on blogs, Twitter, social networks, and in the elite media generates the storylines that filter across the national and local press, providing the fodder for public opinion. Stalwarts of the left, dedicated to principles not personalities, hammered the administration; couple that with the partisan criticisms from conservatives and libertarians, and the net effect was to alter conventional wisdom and undercut Obama's image and message." — Former Hillary Clinton adviser Peter Daou writing at Huffington Post, Jan. 20.
"To learn more about how you can be a part of the Epic Movement for Equal Rights. Visit The Human Rights Campaign at www.hrc.org/ and support the True Colors Fund. This Year I Resolve to Join the Conversation on Equality. I will Stand Up and be outspoken about Same Sex Marriage and Let Freedom Sing." — Top-10 pop singer Jason Mraz on his blog, Dec. 31.
" ( I don't talk about my personal life ) because I don't want to bore people stiff with my dreary, dysfunctional, endlessly repeating similar relationships that last from three weeks to three months to nine months or whatever." — Gay actor Rupert Everett to Britain's The Guardian, Nov. 29.
" ( In ) the Naughty Aughties ... even celebrities—who'd long built up a wall of privacy by hiding behind lying publicists—couldn't help Tweeting their every thought, caught up in the universal need to connect, to emit, to admit, and to bore." — Gay Village Voice columnist Michael Musto, Dec. 29.
"I've been in a relationship ( with Ryan Spahn ) for a while now, and if you just met the two of us together we'd be 'gay.' But that somehow means anything that happened before ( we met ) didn't count—and I don't feel that way. I know that some people feel that way. They were with women, but it always felt wrong. But it didn't for me. It felt right at the time. It didn't work out, but it also didn't work out with other men—many times. That's why 'gay' never seemed right." — Ugly Betty actor Michael Urie, who plays Marc St. James, to The Advocate, February issue.
—Assistance: Bill Kelley
