Pictured Michael Musto
'My boyfriend [ Paul Hickey ] , he found out he was positive in 1990 on his 40th birthday, and he got really distraught about it. From that moment he wouldn't have sex with me, so I think I decided in my head that I would go and get it from somewhere else, which sounds really bizarre. ... On tours and stuff, I went around the world and hooked up with guys and wasn't always safe. I've got no tattoos, but I kind of felt like that was like a gay tattoo.' — Erasure singer Andy Bell to the Miami gay newspaper The Weekly News, Feb. 3.
'You never fall in love with the people you think you will fall in love with. And it never happens at a convenient time.' — Will & Grace's Debra Messing to the Florida gay magazine Contax Guide, Feb. 24.
' [ CNN's ] Anderson [ Cooper ] has only really been out [ of the closet ] in that he gracefully lives his life while never bothering to claim he's straight. The child of complicated parents and a product of fame, class, and some darkness, he's evolved into a fascinating paradox who's reportorially fearless about everything but himself.' — Michael Musto writing at Out.com, March 7.
'A portion of the gay population—maybe 20 percent, [ gay author and historian Charles ] Kaiser estimates—conducts itself in ways that are not only reckless but just plain disgusting. Unprotected, promiscuous sex in bathhouses and at parties and using drugs such as crystal meth to prolong both desire and performance are practices that should be no more acceptable for gays than for heterosexuals. Gays don't get some sort of pass just because they're gay.' — Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, Feb. 17.
' [ C ] rystal, like heroin, has no redeeming value. I know first-hand how this drug grabs you and destroys the life you once thought you were building for yourself. I also know how finding, smoking, snorting and injecting the drug pushes out all other considerations. I know what it's like to know you should stop, to need to stop, yet be unable to stop even as you see your friends and money slowly disappear until you are bankrupt and nearly homeless.' — Jeff Epperly, longtime former editor of the Boston gay newspaper Bay Windows, writing in the Feb. 24 issue.
'A straight man knows that if he knocks a woman up, he's on the hook for child-support payments for 18 years. [ I propose that if you ] infect someone with HIV out of malice or negligence ... the state [ should ] come after you for half the cost of the meds the person you infected is going to need. ( The man you infected is 50 percent responsible for his own infection. ) Once a few dozen men in New York City, San Francisco, Toronto, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and Vancouver are having their wages docked for drug-support payments, other gay men will be a lot more careful about not spreading HIV. Trojan won't be able to make condoms fast enough.' — Syndicated gay columnist Dan Savage, Feb. 24.
'We worry about homophobia, but what is more homophobic than for one gay man to intentionally expose another gay man to HIV? ... This new and deadly strain of HIV is not as lethal as our own amoral behavior. The mortal danger to the gay community is not from a new bug or from an intrusive government or from a frightened public, it is from our own selfishness, arrogance and indifference.' — Former Philadelphia AIDS Task Force counselor Harry E. Adamson writing in the Philadelphia Daily News, Feb. 28.
Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman of the anti-gay American Family Association, sent this out about HBO commentator Bill Maher. The enemy of our enemy is our friend ...
'Bill Maher, host of HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, says that all Christians are crazy and are unenlightened because of their faith.
'Maher made the comments on MSNBC's Scarborough Country. Maher said:
''We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion ... I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies. I think that flying planes in a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder. If you look at it logically, it's something that was drilled into your head when you were a small child. ... When you look at belief in such things—as do you go to heaven, is there a devil—we have more in common with ( Muslim countries ) Turkey and Iran and Syria than we do with European nations and Canada and nations that, yes, I would consider more enlightened that us.'
'Maher said he wasn't speaking only of evangelicals, but included all religious people. He said he agreed with Jesse Ventura 'who had that quote about religion is a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers.' Because of their neurological disorder, he said Christians 'do not believe in science and rationality.' He went on to say the future does not belong to religion. One recalls the famous quote from the Beatles in the '60s that they 'were more popular than Jesus.' According to Maher, the Bible is a book of fairy tales, calling the account of Jonah a fairy tale the same as Jack in the Beanstalk.
'Had Maher said such things about homosexuals, he would have been immediately fired. But because he was speaking of Christians, his bigotry was acceptable to HBO, owned by Time Warner Inc. TAKE ACTION Send Mr. Maher an e-mail saying you regret he has such a low view of Christians, and will pray that he be 'enlightened' as to the true nature of Christianity ... .'
