'MAYA, who has deferred college while she campaigns for her father sporting an array of brightly colored bracelets ... .' — Chicago Sun-Times in a feature on Republican U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes, mentioning his 19-year-old daughter Maya. The mainstream media has not been reporting on the fact that Maya is a lesbian—maybe those brightly colored bracelets are the new code word for rainbow = GLBT. Maya's sexuality is disclosed in her own personal Web sites, and some believe it is relevant because Keyes called Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter Mary a 'selfish hedonist' because she is gay.
'When you turn to cable and reality TV, you see us—our lives, our relationships, our diversity. But when you turn to network comedies and dramas, you're seeing portraits of an America where gay people and families are nearly invisible. That's not the America we live in.' — Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Executive Director Joan Garry complaining Sept. 16 about 'the lowest number of gay characters in scripted [over-the-air] programming since GLAAD started tracking them in 1996.'
'I had no idea she was under there. I was talking to a friend and I could hear my name being called out. Then she suddenly presented herself. She had been there four days.' — Gay singer George Michael telling Britain's GQ how a female stalker hid under the floor of the livingroom of his London home, in the October issue. The room hangs over the edge of a slope, supported by stilts.
'The old saying 'there's someone for everyone' is a harmful lie. Fact is, some people—for a host of reasons—are alone most or all of their lives. Instead of encouraging people to live in false and often frustrating hope, I think it's better to encourage ALL people to mull over the possibility that they may wind up alone and to picture ways they can enjoy fulfilling lives as single people.' — Gay advice columnist Dan Savage writing at PlanetOut.com, Sept. 25.
'All my parents' friends were homosexual. When you grow up in [the New York neighborhood of] Chelsea you have more 'uncles' than any other kids. Every Halloween my brother and I were dying to go as Spider-Man and Batman. 'Uncle' Louie next door said, 'No, you've got to go as Marilyn Monroe and Mae West.' So we went to school in full-on drag!' — Crossing Jordan actor Jerry O'Connell to Out magazine's Michael Musto, October issue.
'Settling down requires settling for. All people who are in successful long-term relationships have had to adjust their expectations, a.k.a. lower their standards, a.k.a. 'settle for.' Our real boyfriends can never quite compete with our imaginary boyfriends ... except for the whole 'real' part. Personally I'll 'settle for' a real boyfriend I can actually talk to, hold, fuck and fight with over an imaginary boyfriend who is perfect in every way.' — Gay advice columnist Dan Savage writing at PlanetOut.com, Sept. 25.
'Love isn't a feeling that sweeps you away ... but a decision you make. It's also a lie two people tell each other, a myth they create together, because loving one person intensely, and being loved by them in return, makes the world a slightly less terrifying place. Love is also never perfect; no two people are perfect for each other, and every relationship has its shortcomings.' — Gay advice columnist Dan Savage.
'The Democrats are anti-Christian, anti-American space aliens as far as I'm concerned.' — Dennis Scialanca of Philadelphia at the Christian Coalition's training conference held in Washington, D.C., in late September, as quoted by the Hartford Courant, Sept. 25.
'Never allow the enemy to block you. Get around them, run over the top of them, destroy them—whatever you need to do so that God's word is the word that is being practiced in Congress, town halls and state legislatures.' — Christian Coalition of America National Field Coordinator Bill Thomson to the Associated Press in a news story headlined 'Christians Use Gay Marriage to Seek Voters,' Sept. 25.
'You may have heard by now that the Michigan Republican Party has called for my arrest. That's right. They literally want me brought up on charges—and, hopefully, locked up. ... The Republican Party, yesterday, filed a criminal complaint with the prosecutors in each of the counties where I spoke last week in Michigan. ... My crime? Clean underwear for anyone who will vote in the upcoming election.' — Filmmaker Michael Moore about his tactics used during his 60-city 'Slacker Uprising Tour' through the 20 battleground states.
'By 71, a thoughtful person should reach a point where he has learned a thing or two. One thing Keith Kerr has learned is that the Pentagon's policy for lesbian and gay military personnel, infamously known as 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' (DADT) is seriously flawed. As a retired, gay brigadier general of the California State Military Reserves, Kerr should know what he's talking about. 'It's not working,' Kerr says ... . 'It's still harming people. Careers are ruined. The military loses a lot of good people.'' — Metro Weekly Sept. 30.
'The experiences of our 24 allies who have lifted the ban have all been positive. Homophobia has been instilled in the military for years. It's a value that's been passed down. What we find today, though, is that society has changed, that younger people, especially, don't seem to have the same attitude. Frankly, younger gays today are not willing to put up with the bullshit of hiding who they are.'— Brigadier General Kerr.
'Police in Washington Township, N.J., shut down a cigar shop they say was actually a secret gay sex club. ... The owner of the Inside Out cigar store in the Whitman Plaza say it is a gay and lesbian social lounge that is open to everyone. ... [But neighbors said] it would stay open until all hours of the morning and men seemed to stay for hours and left with no cigars.' — NBC news report.
'Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. ... In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics.' — Garrison Keillor writing for In These Times.
