Pictured Laurel Holloman and Jennifer Beals play a long-term couple in The L Word.
'It's truly the most fun set I've ever been on. It's easy-going. Everybody's funny. Without a doubt, they have the best writers in television on that show.' — Comedian/ singer Lea DeLaria on TV's Will & Grace, to Boston's Bay Windows, Dec. 18.
''Trick' is slang taken from the world of prostitution; a trick is someone that you really don't care about, unless you're one of those legendary hookers with a heart of gold. A trick is a transaction. ... I'd like to suggest to all the gay men reading this that you permanently banish 'trick' from your personal vocabulary. Eager to tell a friend about your sizzling encounter with a handsome guitar player during a one-night stopover in Prague? Well, call the guy your 'buddy,' because ya know, he probably would've become a regular sex bud if you'd been able to stay a little longer in the Czech Republic.' — brooklynjack.blogspot.com, Dec. 30. Jack's blog is read by around 5,000 people a month. (Viewer discretion advised.)
'It used to be that only geeks hung out in chat rooms and hook-up websites, but 2003 was the year it became mainstream. The next trend is bound to be sites that verify that photos actually look like the people they're supposed to represent.' — Managing Editor Paul Gallant writing in the Toronto gay newspaper Xtra!, Dec. 25.
'It's increasingly difficult to get folks in the gay and lesbian community riled up about anything, let alone take to the streets. We are increasingly content to stay home, watch ourselves be represented on television and argue about its accuracy. Personally, I can't stand the lesbians on Queer As Folk.' — Brenda Cossman writing in the Toronto gay newspaper Xtra!, Dec. 25.
'I wanted to be part of a project that could potentially change someone's life, that there could be some gay woman in the middle of the country who has no access to an extended community who could see herself represented in some way and would be able to celebrate herself rather than be ashamed.' — Actress Jennifer (Flashdance) Beals, who stars in Showtime's new lesbian series The L Word, to Los Angeles' Lesbian News, January issue.
'Marriage as we understand it—voluntary, monogamous, legally egalitarian, based on love, involving adults only—is a pretty recent phenomenon. For much of human history, polygyny was the rule—read your Old Testament—and in much of Africa and the Muslim world, it still is. Arranged marriages, forced marriages, child marriages, marriages predicated on the subjugation of women— gay marriage is like a fairy tale romance compared with most chapters of the history of wedlock.' — Katha Pollitt writing in The Nation, Nov. 26.
'Gay marriage—it's not about sex, it's about separation of church and state.' — Katha Pollitt writing in The Nation, Nov. 26.
'One guy said the avenue seemed to close in on him. He felt a heightened awareness of security—very aware of the people around him. He felt intimidated. A group of construction workers was working on a wall, and they shut down their work to see this, when these guys walked by. I think that's when the intimidation hit. Another guy said he felt angry because one man gave him a dirty look and then said something to his wife.' — Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Police Constable Steve Camp, of the department's hate-and-bias-crimes initiative, on the new training exercise in which recruits of the same gender walk down a busy city street holding hands to better understand the experiences of gay people, to the Edmonton Journal, Jan. 2.
'Perhaps the most interesting thing about metrosexuality is that it represents the beginning of the end of 'sexuality,' the 19th century pseudo-science of sexual preference that said that personality and identity are dictated by whether or not your partner's genitals are the same shape as yours. In a hyperconsumerist post-industrial age like ours, identity and personality are not permitted to be inherent—it would put most ad agencies out of business—and are instead based on lifestyle choices, consumption patterns, brands, social circles. ... From a marketing perspective, though, it makes perfect sense to maintain officially that metrosexuals are all straight—after all, advertising is trying to persuade as many men as possible to relax their sphincter muscles, cooing in their ear that there's nothing gay about being fucked by corporate consumerism.' — Author Mark Simpson, who invented the word 'metrosexual', writing at Salon.com, Jan. 5.
Excerpt from a People magazine Jan. 8 interview with presidential candidate Howard Dean:
Q: Do you feel like you're at the point now where if one of your children came to you and said, 'I'm gay —
Howard: That wouldn't make a difference to me at all.
Q: What if they wanted to get married?
Howard: Well, they'd have to go to Canada.
Q: Underlying the idea that there's some sanctity between a man and a woman in marriage is that there's something wrong, then, about a man and a man, or a woman and a woman.
Howard: I think as governor, or as president, my obligation is to make sure everybody has equal rights under the law, which is what we did. The reason I signed the bill behind closed doors was because the state was in a horrendous—you ought to talk to Sue about it was like at the time, because she was the press secretary—it was horrendous. There were threats, there were hateful people coming in from out of state making outrageous statements. It was a very, very difficult time. I thought it was my job as governor to have a healing process. It was six months before I ran for reelection for my fifth term. I spent my time going around explaining to people why I believed it was important to have equal rights under the law for every single American. Actually, this experience was one of the things that led me to decide to run for president. Because I realized that if you stood up for what you believed in, even if a majority of the voters didn't agree with you, you could still win by being very clear that this is what you thought the right thing to do was. And that part of my responsibility as a political leader is to sometimes do things the voters don't agree with if I believe in them and then convince voters this was the right thing to do. I think today in Vermont, most people support civil unions they don't think it's a big deal.
