'Any state could have a debate on whether the government should provide insurance benefits to the partners of gay employees; lots of places are debating exactly that. Only in Arizona, the bill was not whether to extend health insurance to gay partners— it's a bill to forever outlaw extending benefits to gays and to make any place in the state that has already done so take it back. And this is because, according to a particularly peppy and well-informed sponsor [Republican Barbara Blewster], homosexuality shares a room with bestiality, cannibalism and human sacrifice. That purple Teletubby has a lot more to answer for than we have previously suspected.' — Nationally syndicated columnist Molly Ivins.
The Aztecs did practice human sacrifice — possibly, some scholars have theorized, out of a desperate protein shortage. But it seems to have been more misogynist than homosexual in origin, the victims having always been women. The culture was noted for neither homosexuality nor bestiality, although it is possible that Blewster was confused by the often-reported fact that the Aztecs were fond of wearing pink feathers.' — Ivins.
'When you attack my family and you steal my freedom, I will not sit quietly in my office. This Legislature takes my gay tax dollars and spends my gay tax dollars the same as your straight tax dollars. If you're not going to treat me fairly, don't take my money.' — Openly gay Arizaona state Rep. Steve May to The Arizona Republic.
'When he went off to fight in Iraq, the 39-year-old Los Angeles resident did what any airman might do. He took with him a photo of his beloved, a reminder of who waits for him at home. But the airman is gay. So the photo he carries with him appears to be of his dog. The pet is in the foreground, and the man's partner of five years, a 41-year-old talent agent named Brian, is in the background, as if Brian were a friend who just wandered into the frame. The United States armed forces deem open homosexuality a risk to morale, good order, discipline and unit readiness. Gay servicemen and women who reveal their sexual orientation or are found to be homosexual are subject to discharge.' — Los Angeles Times April 16 article on gays in the military.
'Among the 19 NATO countries, six do not let openly gay men and women serve: Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Turkey and the United States. Ireland and Israel are among the 24 nations that allow openly gay soldiers. ... According to the UCSB report, lesbians in the military are much more likely to be expelled than gay men. In 1999, almost a third of the 1,046 American military members discharged because of their sexual orientation were women, although they made up only 14% of the active armed forces.' — LA Times.
'The nicest thing that people say to me is that I give nelly queens a good name, and I'm glad.' — Peter Paige, Emmett on Showtime's Queer As Folk, to The Advocate, April 15.
'Straights have become the new gays. You can't tell us apart anymore. I blame Diesel jeans and Queer As Folk. All I do is hit on straights, and they're all, 'Gee, thanks, but I'm really more emotionally drawn to women.' You just can't tell. They're all wearing 'low riders,' and they have great haircuts, and they're working out.' — Peter Paige.
'We have a Republican bigot in the White House, and I still don't feel a tidal wave of antigay sentiment. I feel as though that tide has turned and we are now in much more danger of harming ourselves. A lot of people have underestimated the general population's willingness to be accepting, and we [gay people] need to stop apologizing for ourselves.' — Paige.
'Every year you stay on current HIV medication is associated with a 27 percent higher risk of getting a heart attack.' — Researcher Jens Lundgren speaking at the 10th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston, according to London's Positive Nation magazine, April issue.
'It's one of Philadelphia's dirty little secrets. Furtively lurking around the stalls, urinals and sinks of some of the city's most respectable public restrooms are men cruising for anonymous gay sex.' — Lead sentence on the lead article in the April 3 Philadelphia Daily News.
'There are moments in my life when I become acutely aware of just how gay I am. One occurred during Cher's farewell appearance at the Staples Center. It happened the minute she made her entrance, standing on top of a huge chandelier being lowered from the ceiling. When I saw her, a massive, involuntary scream escaped my tiny Asian body, so loud and sustained that even the ushers were horrified.' — Actor Alec Mapa writing in The Advocate, April 15.
'I dig ogling pretty boys doing it on-screen. I've always had an abiding preference for gay over lesbian porn.' — Conservative lesbian columnist Norah Vincent writing in The Advocate, April 15.
'There is one extremely famous Hollywood actor who's gay and doesn't like being in the same room as me.' — Gay actor Sir Ian McKellen to the British magazine Attitude, as quoted by The Scotsman, April 4.
'I think it's much more difficult [to find a boyfriend when you're a superstar]. I remember once Michelle Pfeiffer and I were at a club. We wanted to go dancing, and no one asked us to dance. It was so stupid! ... It takes a certain kind of man to come up and start talking to you.' — Cher to PlanetOut.com, April 4.
'I think the war is a colossal mistake. I send up daily secular prayers for the safety of American troops and the Iraqi people.' — Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours, to the Tacoma [Wash.] News Tribune, April 6.
'It is the only small town I know of where those who live unconventionally seem to outnumber those who live within the prescribed bounds of home and licensed marriage, respectable job, and biological children.' — Michael Cunningham.
'I absolutely believe that sexuality is a continuum, and further, that my homosexuality resembles no one else's; that in fact everyone's sexuality is his or her own, and resembles nothing so much as itself. I feel it's one of the jobs of novelists to try to help complicate our sense of human sexuality—to write according to the notion that the fact that someone is 'gay,' 'straight' or 'bisexual' tells you almost nothing useful or meaningful about the person in question.' — Michael Cunningham.
'All things equal, I would prefer to have a child in a school that has a strong appreciation for the values of the Christian community, where a child is taught to have a strong faith. ... The reason that Christian schools and Christian universities are growing is a result of a strong value system. In a religious environment the value is set. That is not the case in a public school, where there are so many different kids with different kinds of values.' — U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige as quoted by Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention, April 7.
