Pictured San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Photo courtesy of GLAAD.
'Gay men do not have the right to spread a debilitating and often fatal disease. A person who is H.I.V.-positive has no more right to unprotected intercourse than he has the right to put a bullet through another person's head.' — Gay author and historian Charles Kaiser to The New York Times, Feb. 15.
'I really don't want to stop. They're making me stop! I told the tour managers, 'But I haven't done Vermont or Delaware,' and they said, 'There are no venues big enough, dear,' and then I said, 'So go out and build some!' After that, physical restraint was mentioned.' — Cher, telling the New York Post Feb. 3 that her 325th and final farewell concert will take place April 30 at the Hollywood Bowl.
'I'm not [ gay ] . [ I ] t was very odd. ... I just assumed this is what comes of being 42 and single. I don't know if they just needed to find a reason why I wasn't married. ... I do think it was really weird, though, that there was all this curiosity about something like that—about sexuality. And I thought, what a world we live in that that's so important.' — Desperate Housewives star Marcia Cross ( Bree ) on false ( mostly British ) media reports that she was preparing to come out in The Advocate, speaking Feb. 9 on ABC-TV's The View.
'It all goes on chemistry. It's never going to be perfect if the chemistry isn't there when you first clock each other. If there's that special little spark, you've got something that can be worked on. You don't need to be so guarded because you have a connection. That's a perfect date.' — Gay singer Jimmy Somerville to the British AIDS magazine Positive Nation, February issue.
'It is the responsibility of Parliament to ensure that minority rights are uniform across the country. The government cannot, and should not, pick and choose which rights they will defend and which rights they will ignore.' — Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler as the government introduced legislation in Parliament Feb. 1 to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. Courts already have legalized it in eight of Canada's 13 provinces and territories.
'So many of my generation, after a long journey, have come home to family and faith and are determined to bring up responsible, moral children. Government is not the source of these values, but government should never undermine them. Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be redefined by activist judges. For the good of families, children and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage.' — President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address, Feb. 2.
'I don't support an amendment to the Constitution banning gay marriage. ... I think it's a matter that should be left to the states. As a conservative, I don't support constitutional amendments generally unless the cause is clear and evident. The issue here, of course, is that some people think a constitutional amendment is necessary in order to preserve the rights of the states. I happen not to come down on that side of the issue and, indeed, there are many Republicans who do [ not ] . I think if you looked at our national convention, for example, among the prominent speakers—Gov. Schwarzenegger, Rudy Giuliani—feel the same way. It's not an issue that sets the Republican Party apart in one great mass. It's an issue upon which people differ.' —Lynne Cheney, wife of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, on National Public Radio's Fresh Air, Feb. 9.
'That train [ gay marriage ] had already left the station. This was going to be used as a wedge issue regardless of whether or not some crazy mayor was sworn in in San Francisco or not. I can't stand my party right now. Is it political expediency? Is it accommodation that we're after? Or is it about standing up on principles and values?' —San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom speaking at Harvard University Feb. 8.
'George Bush's second inaugural extravaganza was every bit as repugnant as I had expected, a vulgar orgy of triumphalism probably unmatched since Napoleon crowned himself emperor of the French in Notre Dame in 1804. The little Corsican corporal had a few decent victories to his escutcheon. Lodi, Marengo, that sort of thing. Not so this strutting Texan mountebank, with his chimpanzee smirk and his born-again banalities delivered in that constipated syntax that sounds the way cold cheeseburgers look, and his grinning plastic wife, and his scheming junta of neo-con spivs, shamans, flatterers and armchair warmongers, and his sinuous evasions and his brazen lies, and his sleight of hand theft from the American poor, and his rape of the environment, and his lethal conviction that the world must submit to his Pax Americana or be bombed into charcoal.' — Mike Carlton writing in the Sydney Morning Herald.
'Someday the rest of the country will see it our way. The future is not with doctrinaire, theological, fundamentalist religion and loss of civil rights. The future is going to be with equal rights for all people and a rational spirituality.' — TV talk-show host Bill Maher to The Advocate, Feb. 15.
'Everybody knows Madonna lip-syncs. Everybody knows a lot of people lip-sync onstage. ... When you're going to see a live band, it's one of the most exciting things that you can see. And I don't want to go and see someone who lip-syncs, thank you very much. I got a lot of flak for [ saying ] it [ about Madonna last October ] . Somebody said, 'Well, she can't sing when she's in the crab position.' Well, there you go ... especially if she had hemorrhoids as well.' — Elton John to British media, Feb. 7.
