Picturewd Dan Savage. Photo by Rex Wockner
'Three percent of males 15-44 years of age have had oral or anal sex with another male in the last 12 months. ... Four percent of females had a sexual experience with another female in the last 12 months. The proportion who had same-sex contact in their lifetimes was 6 percent for males and 11 percent for females. About 1 percent of men and 3 percent of women 15-44 years of age have had both male and female sexual partners in the last 12 months.' — From a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention summary of its just-released study 'Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures: Men and Women 15-44 Years of Age, United States, 2002.' Researchers questioned 12,571 Americans face-to-face.
'In response to a question that asked, 'Do you think of yourself as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or something else?' 90 percent of men 18-44 years of age responded that they think of themselves as heterosexual, 2.3 percent of men answered homosexual, 1.8 percent bisexual, 3.9 percent 'something else,' and 1.8 percent did not answer the question. Percents for women were similar.' — From a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention summary.
'My Barbie world was different from those of your average little girl, or gay boy. Barbie didn't go on dates, or have stupid tea parties. When she wasn't being a mean cunt and acting like a whore, she was in major danger fighting for survival in The Poseidon Adventure. She was screaming and swimming for her life in Jaws. And her hair was a mess with her dress ripped to shreds while she fought off Jason from Friday the 13th. Sometimes I let her live. Other times the bitch died and ended up in a shallow grave in my back yard.' — Columnist Paulo Murillo in Los Angeles' FAB!, Sept. 23.
'This new 'Instruction' is disgusting and destructive, but hardly surprising given this pope's long-standing, unbridled hatred for gay people. While he's at it, he should order that the Sistine Chapel be painted over and that the Vatican get rid of all the sacred works of art created for it by so-called 'disordered' gay people over the centuries. This is part of the church hierarchy's calculated—and frankly, evil—campaign to scapegoat gay people for the decades of appalling sex abuse of children and young people that it alone created, nurtured and covered up.' — National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman on the Roman Catholic Church's reported plans to ban all gays from seminaries, Sept. 22.
'I've never read anyone's weblog ( I refuse to use that ugly jargon word ) , have no interest in reading anyone's weblog or in keeping one ( except for the purposes of this course ) . Giving gasbags like Andrew Sullivan and Michelangelo Signorile, to name just the first two who come to mind, yet another outlet is just plain sad. I am also appalled that an electronic gossip mill is somehow supposed to be 'revolutionizing' journalism.' — Jim Baxter, publisher of the North Carolina gay newspaper The Front Page, in the first entry on a blog he was required to create for a course he's taking.
'Can't the religious right extend gay and lesbian Americans the same courtesy they extend to, say, adulterers? Or shrimp lovers? Yes, the gays are going to hell—it says so right there in the bible somewhere. It says we should be put to death along with the adulterers and shrimp eaters. But the adulterers and shrimp eaters don't come in for the same degree of persecution. No attempts to strip them of their civil rights or write them out of the U.S. Constitution. And what about the Jews? They're going to hell, along with Tom Cruise and his Scientologist pals and Lutherans ( if you ask the Catholics ) and the Catholics ( if you ask the Lutherans ) . So many hell-bound sinners—and everyone else gets a pass. Fundamentalist Christians seem content merely knowing that everyone else will suffer horribly when we're all left behind after they've been—what is it again? Ruptured or something? They may attempt to persuade others to join them, prior to the rupture, but there's no attempt to actively persecute. Anyone else. Just us.' — Gay writer Dan Savage guest-blogging at AndrewSullivan.com in August.
'Just days before 'Southern Decadence', an annual homosexual celebration attracting tens of thousands of people to the French Quarters [ sic ] section of New Orleans, an act of God destroys the city. ... 'Southern Decadence' has a history of filling the French Quarters [ sic ] with drunken homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the public streets and bars. [ T ] his act of God destroyed a wicked city. From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence', New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same.' — The organization Repent America, Aug. 31.
'The average gay man leaves San Francisco after only four years, according to a San Francisco Department of Public Health survey; sex here involves a bigger risk of contracting HIV than most places; and many gay men say the community, if it is more than a population mass, is unwelcoming. That isolation can lead to depression, which itself can lead to substance use and abuse and risky sexual behavior.' — From a Sept. 2 San Francisco Chronicle article headlined 'Gay men find it's not easy being new in town.'
'I get the most vicious e-mails from lefties and fags disagreeing with me on tiny, minor points. It's the narcissism of small differences. I go off the reservation once in a while, I'm just not doctrinaire.' — Syndicated writer Dan Savage to CampusProgress.org, Aug. 26.
'It's not ever been done before to my knowledge.' — Liz Stokes of the Dallas Gender Society on the group's upcoming pinup calendar of Dallas transgenders, to the Dallas Voice, Aug. 26.
'Tyson Gay bounced back from his fourth-place finish at the world track and field championships by winning the 200 meter sprint Friday at the World Athletics Final.' — An excerpt from one of a slew of nongay news stories that clogged online gay-news searches for several days, as captured Sept. 10. And don't even get us started on 'the Enola Gay.'
