Pictured Susan Saradnon in Alfie.
'She was in the sexiest movie I've ever seen, The Hunger. ... We go to the movies for many reasons—and one of them is to see Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve making love.' — Chicago-based film critic Roger Ebert before interviewing Susan Sarandon before a crowd of 3,200 Oct. 6 at the Chicago Theater, during the Chicago International Film Festival, according to Variety. She received the Gold Hugo for career achievement from Chicago Film Festival founder-director Michael Kutza, saiying 'This is going in my bathroom with all the other anatomically incorrect people.'
'A lot of people have asked me, 'Were you worried about the sex scenes?', and you know, maybe it's just that I take these things for granted, because I live in LA and some of my close friends and family are gay, and I grew up in a generation where it's not a problem. It's not my fault if people disagree with my ideas, because that's how I was raised.' — Brokeback Mountain star Jake Gyllenhaal to Britain's Empire magazine, Oct. 6. The Ang Lee movie won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for best film Sept. 10 in Italy.
'I had a yard sale after my divorce where 5,000 people came, and one man in particular bought several pairs of my shoes. You know you've made it when a drag queen comes to your yard sale and buys your stuff!' — Singer Wynonna Judd to The Advocate, Oct. 11.
'I think [ gay men love me ] because I overdo it. I try to do things really big. I've always been this way—I was always making my hair redder or wearing more sparkle. Whether they're gay or straight, people are drawn to someone who has a lot of life going on.' — Singer Wynonna Judd to The Advocate, Oct. 11.
'Blood spurted from her neck. I ripped open some packets to get T-shirts out to try and stop the blood, then I phoned the paramedics. ... We were terrified. The blood was spurting out in big clots, and she looked as if she was having a fit.' — Paula Coburn, a participant in Johannesburg's Sept. 24 gay-pride parade, to the Cape Times after an unnamed lesbian on a float was pierced in the neck by a broken bottle hurled from a high-rise apartment building. The injured woman was stitched up, kept two nights in the hospital for observation, then released complaining about her right hand not working right.
'Yes, I am gay. Yes, I have two children. ... Beyond saying that I have been in a relationship for 12 years and I have two children, I am not saying anything. No other parliamentarians are asked about their families and how their children are conceived and I don't see why I have to. I have children to protect and I don't want to go into it.' — Penny Sharpe, who was chosen to fill a vacancy in the Upper House of Parliament in the Australian state of New South Wales, where Sydney is located, to local media, Sept. 26.
'If we cannot tolerate the viewpoint of someone who tries to explain why one-quarter of us [ gays ] like and support the president, then how can we expect the 96 percent of Americans who are heterosexual to listen seriously to our demands for equality? The growing polarization of American politics has taken root within gay America as well. The explosion of liberal gay bloggers, many of whom spend about as much time on the 'gray' of most issues as Rush Limbaugh and his 'dittoheads,' has only exacerbated the proud queer tradition of disdain for gay Republicans ( 'Nazi Jews' ) and the caricature of conservative Christians ( 'religious right,' 'religious political extremists' ) .' — Chris Crain, executive editor of the Washington Blade, in a Sept. 23 editorial defending the paper's decision to publish columns by 'Jeff Gannon,' the alleged former male prostitute who was drummed out of the White House press corps for lobbing softball questions at George W. Bush. 'Gannon' was a reporter for a biased Web-based news organization.
'You know, to me, I have never really felt that strong one way or another [ about same-sex marriage ] because to me, I don't, you know, I'm not personally hung up on the whole thing. ... [ T ] he people of California ... overwhelmingly voted on that issue, and Proposition 22 won. I don't want to be the one that says, 'Look, I decide right now your vote doesn't mean anything. And the money that you spent on that campaign was a waste of money and it's gone.' And I think it just shows you also, at the same time, how much out of touch the Legislature is with the people.' — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the San Jose Mercury News, Sept. 21. On Sept. 29, Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill passed by the Legislature that opened marriage to same-sex couples.
'Put it on the ballot—maybe they've changed their mind. Because I think the polls are different today than they maybe were five years ago. It could easily be that they favor gay marriage in California.' — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a campaign event Sept. 28, a day before he vetoed the groundbreaking bill passed by the Legislature legalizing same-sex marriage. In 2000, California voters defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
'Ever since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, I have spent my evenings pausing and rewinding news footage of my hometown in search of some intersection or landmark so that I might winnow down the enormous and numbing sense of loss I feel. I came close with a clip of a burning mansion in the Garden District, the neighborhood I grew up in, but the clip was too brief and the camera spun wildly away from the house and up to the military helicopter hovering overhead. There was also the battered Clearview Mall on Veterans Boulevard, which sits next to the interstate on-ramp I would take to go home after visiting friends in areas of Jefferson Parish that now lie underwater. But the wide shots, the helicopter views that pan ceaselessly over a newly formed swamp of homes, businesses, and lost lives, turn my city into something incomprehensible.' — Gay author Christopher Rice writing in The Advocate, Oct. 11.
