Pictured Michael Bloomberg. Photo by Rex Wockner
'I think people have the right to love, to live with and to marry whoever they want, regardless of their sexual orientation.' — Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, addressing a Human Rights Campaign dinner Feb. 5 in New York City.
'Mayor Bloomberg is a coward. He should not file those papers to appeal, he should stand with us during this, the most important civil rights battle we have ever been involved with.' — Gay state Sen. Tom Duane, D-New York City, denouncing Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Feb. 6 for appealing the Feb. 4 New York City trial-court ruling that declared the state's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Bloomberg said he personally favors legalization of same-sex marriage but wants the matter to be settled by the state's highest court.
'I really relate to the gay issue because of the marijuana issue. Because what Democrats are saying to gay people—which is basically, 'Oh, what do you care if it's just getting civil unions? It's basically the same thing as marriage—just shut up and take it!'—that's basically what people say to me about pot-smoking. They say, 'Bill, what do you care so much if it's illegal? You can always step outside the restaurant after dinner, I've seen you do it a hundred times, and smoke your joint in the alley.' And my answer to both of them is 'Fuck you.' You go outside after dinner and drink your brandy in the alley. You call whatever is going on under your roof a 'civil union.'' — TV talk-show host Bill Maher to The Advocate, Feb. 15.
'As every parent of a methamphetamine addict comes to learn, this drug has a unique, horrific quality. In an interview, Stephan Jenkins, the singer in the band Third Eye Blind, said that methamphetamine makes you feel 'bright and shiny.' It also makes you paranoid, incoherent and both destructive and pathetically and relentlessly self-destructive. Then you will do unconscionable things in order to feel bright and shiny again. Nick had always been a sensitive, sagacious, joyful and exceptionally bright child, but on meth he became unrecognizable. Nick's mother and I were attentive, probably overly attentive—part of the first wave of parents obsessed with our children in a self-conscious way. ( Before us, people had kids. We parented. ) ' — David Sheff writing about his 19-year-old son Nick in The New York Times Magazine Feb. 6.
'Methamphetamine triggers the brain's neurotransmitters, particularly dopamine, which spray like bullets from a gangster's tommy gun. The drug destroys the receptors and as a result may, over time, permanently reduce dopamine levels, sometimes leading to symptoms normally associated with Parkinson's disease like tremors and muscle twitches. Meth increases the heart rate and blood pressure and can cause irreversible damage to blood vessels in the brain, which can lead to strokes. It can also cause arrhythmia and cardiovascular collapse, possibly leading to death. But I felt fantastic—supremely confident, euphoric.' — California-based riter David Sheff.
'Holocaust survivors and world leaders held a ceremony ... in Poland to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp by the Red Army. Gay victims were the only ones not remembered, and gay groups the only ones not invited.' — The Gully news service about an event in Warsaw.
'Between 1.1 million and 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, were put to death in Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi death camps. Alongside Jews, gays, Gypsies ( Roma and Sinti ) , Soviet prisoners of war and Poles were killed at Auschwitz. Partial analyses of official Nazi records indicate that as many as 15,000 gay men perished in concentration camps. But independent scholars think this is just the tip of the iceberg.' — The Gully.
''The Nazi campaign against homosexuality targeted the more than one million German men who, the state asserted, carried a 'degeneracy' that threatened the 'disciplined masculinity' of Germany,' according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Gay men were stripped of their civil rights by the Nazis in 1935 and forced to wear pink triangles to identify them. Lesbians were also persecuted, but less severely, in part because Nazis considered women inferior to men and dependent on them, and did not see lesbians as a threat.' — The Gully.
''America cannot continue to lead the family of nations around the world if we suffer the collapse of the family here at home. [ The Supreme Judicial Court's legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts is ] 'a blow to the family.' — Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to a group of Utah Republicans, reported in the Boston Globe Feb. 26.
''Some [ same-sex couples ] are actually having children born to them. ... Every child has a right to a mother and a father.' — Romney to South Carolina Republicans.
''Fifty per cent of the fleet have sinned homosexually at some time in their naval career,' declared a horrified Admiral Sir Frank Roddam Twiss, the second sea lord, in 1968. Admiral Sir John Fitzroy Duyland Bush, head of the Western Fleet, concurred: 'There is, regrettably, ample evidence that homosexual practices are rife in the Fleet.' Well, of course. Of the three traditional components of naval life in Churchill's famous line, the lash was officially abolished in 1949 and the daily rum ration in 1970. Homosexuality is the only surviving tradition, and in 2000 it was given official blessing.' — Colin Richardson writing in The Guardian newspaper, on the British Navy's decision to advertise openly for gay recruits.
'This appalling decision will be greeted with dismay, particularly by ordinary soldiers in Her Majesty's forces, many of whom joined the services precisely because they wished to turn their backs on some of the values of modern society.' — Aldershot's Tory MP Gerald Howarth.
'Turn their backs, eh? Let's hope that none of them dropped their soap in the shower. In fact, most 'ordinary soldiers' - or sailors or pilots, for that matter - have proved themselves to be rather more grown up than the likes of Mr Howarth. The Navy's decision to advertise openly for gay recruits shows just how far we have come in the five years since the lifting of the ban. And that can only be because the tides had long since changed, leaving all those retired rear admirals and Tory MPs well and truly beached.' — Colin Richardson.