Pictured Cher from her Cher Live CD.
'The reason it's so important to make this crystal clear—even as Kerry's concession speech is still ringing in our ears—is that to the victors go not only the spoils but the explanations. And the Republicans are framing their victory as the triumph of conservative moral values and the wedge cultural issues they exploited throughout the campaign. But it wasn't gay marriage that did the Democrats in; it was the fatal decision to make the pursuit of undecided voters the overarching strategy of the Kerry campaign. This meant that at every turn the campaign chose caution over boldness so as not to offend the undecideds who, as a group, long to be soothed and reassured rather than challenged and inspired.' — Columnist Arianna Huffington.
'Already there are those in the party convinced that, in the interest of expediency, Democrats need to put forth more 'centrist' candidates—i.e. Republican-lite candidates —who can make inroads in the all-red middle of the country. I'm sorry to pour salt on raw wounds, but isn't that what [ ousted Sen. ] Tom Daschle did? He even ran ads showing himself hugging the president! But South Dakotans refused to embrace this lily-livered tactic. Because, ultimately, copycat candidates fail in the way 'me-too' brands do.' Unless the Democratic Party wants to become a permanent minority party, there is no alternative but to return to the idealism, boldness and generosity of spirit that marked the presidencies of FDR and JFK and the short-lived presidential campaign of Bobby Kennedy.' — Huffington.
'I'd like to apologize on behalf of my penis. I honestly had no idea my penis was so dangerous. I had no idea that people were willing to keep a leader who sends young men and women to their deaths in a war based on a lie, in part because they're afraid of my penis and what I do with it, much like the president is. I definitely got the message last night. An unpopular president who leads a great nation into an economic black hole and a violent overseas morass and who has utterly destroyed our nation's financial resources is less scary than my penis.' — From www.bitchpanic.com .
'All the gay guys, all my friends, all my gay friends, you guys, you have got to vote, alright? Because it would only be a matter of time before you guys would be so screwed, I cannot tell you. Because, you know, the people, like, in the very right wing of this party, of these Republicans, the very very right wing, the Jerry Falwell element, if they get any more power, you guys are going to be living in some state by yourselves. So, I hate scare tactics, but I really believe that that's true.' — Cher speaking at Miami Beach's trendy Crobar, Oct. 22.
'He is brain dead.' — U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on George W. Bush, in a speech at the UAW Local 435 union hall in Cranston Heights, Del., Oct. 19.
'Who would have dreamed anyone would ever feel nostalgia for anything Republican? But some of us remember when the party did not appear to be driven exclusively by ambition, meanness, and a breed you'd call swinish if pigs weren't undeserving of the association.' — Gay playwright Tony Kushner ( Angels in America ) writing in The Advocate, Oct. 26.
'Some Bush supporters are decent and intelligent, and yet they're knowingly returning to the White House an embarrassingly inept, ignorant, incurious, and unfeeling figurehead for the worst conventicle of religious nuts, plutocrats, and petrochemical bagmen ever to lay hold of our federal government. Imagine! Decent and intelligent people will pull the lever for a dull-witted, low-minded puppet of scaly machiavels like Rove and Cheney, of frightening antidemocratic authoritarians like Ashcroft and Rumsfeld. People who know what they're doing are going to do something dreadful.' — Kushner.
'I'm not a believer in marriage. ... For myself. Marriage is a concept constructed from the patriarchal Christian system. I'm a total advocate of civil rights and civil unions, and I think gay people should have the same legal rights as anyone, but I don't believe in the whole church thing.' — k.d. lang to the British lesbian mag Diva, November issue.
'The only gay book I ever read was when I was 15 or 16—Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown.' — k.d. lang.
'Mostly it's bras. Sweaty bras. ... We try to discourage that as much as possible, but it still happens.' — Melissa Etheridge on things thrown at her on stage, to Curve magazine, November issue.
'I don't know. I just don't know.' — President George W. Bush when asked during the third presidential debate Oct. 13 if 'homosexuality is a choice.'
'I do know that we have a choice to make in America and that is to treat people with tolerance and respect and dignity. It's important that we do that. And I also know in a free society people, consenting adults, can live the way they want to live. And that's to be honored. But ... I think it's very important that we protect marriage as an institution between a man and a woman. I proposed a constitutional amendment ... because I was worried that activist judges are actually defining the definition of marriage, and the surest way to protect marriage between a man and woman is to amend the Constitution.' — President George W. Bush when asked during the third presidential debate Oct. 13 if 'homosexuality is a choice.'
'Remember way back in the 1980s, when Dick Cheney racked up one of the most antigay voting records in the House of Representatives? In 1988, he was one of 13 members who even voted against funding for AIDS testing and research when it was still called a 'gay plague.' Well, Cheney's come as far as many other Americans, and for the same essential reason. The more people in our families, workplaces, and communities come out of the closet, the harder it is to regard them as deviants who need to be cured or converted or jailed.' — Columnist Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe, Oct. 21.
