'THEY'RE Nazi bastards from hell. They can do what they want because I've hired an anti-defamation lawyer and they're just adding to the damages they'll pay.' — Anti-gay talk show host Michael Savage to The New York Post on the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. [See viewpoints this issue on Savage's signing with MSNBC.]
'To all questions [having to do] with my marriage, the answer to everything is yes. Do I have sex with my wife? Yes. Is it a real marriage? Yes. Am I gay? Yes.' — Stephen Daldry, Director of The Hours, to the Advocate, March 18, 2003 about people constantly asking him questions about his personal life.
'Don't you think it's interesting when a family member opens up and tells a private thought? I think it has wonderful repercussions within a family. Surprises can lurk everywhere in family life. And the response that person may get back could be something they never dreamed of. It's almost like there can be something in the air in a family, a change about to occur, and someone opens up, and suddenly it allows people to breathe and take a path they may not have known they were ready to take. It can change the entire mosaic of a family. I think that's really a lovely, mysterious thing.' — Actress Frances Conroy, Six Feet Under's Ruth Fisher, to The Advocate, March 18, 2003.
'But I would assume that if [transgenderism] does engender hate, it would have to be because it feels like some kind of act against nature. Now, why something like that becomes frightening but everything else that's unnatural in this world that we engage in does not frighten people, I don't know.' — Jessica Lange, on her new HBO film Normal (airing March 16), to The Advocate, commenting on why transgender people seem to arouse hate and fear.
'Our values. This thing that has grown stronger and stronger in this country. This idea of selfishness as a virtue, as opposed to generosity: That to me is unnatural. How people can justify shooting a doctor who performs abortions and yet be so rabidly pro-life—that to me is unnatural ... . To me, the people who are reacting are the ones who are working against nature.' — Lange to The Advocate when asked to elaborate on her statement 'Everything else that's unnatural.'
'Sen. [Hillary] Clinton, I'm sorry, your husband did nothing for AIDS for eight years.' — Richard Gere, after praising President Bush's AIDS spending, at a Feb. 3 fundraiser in NYC for the American Foundation for AIDS Research, as quoted in The New York Times. Reprinted in the Advocate's Rants & Raves Column, March 18.
'I think gay rights organizations should focus on gay rights. But if they think they've worked on our issues enough, then they should disband. There are already enough groups that oppose war. If they want to do that, they shouldn't pretend to be a gay rights group.' — Rick Rosendall, former president of Washington D.C.'s Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance to The Advocate, March 18.
'AIDS is my life. I've retired from films, and I don't want to do them anymore. I did a couple of good films. Leave it at that.' — Elizabeth Taylor to A&U magazine, February.
'AmFAR's overhead is getting too high for my taste. I'm not being critical, I guess they need to pay the people that work there.' — Elizabeth Taylor to A&U magazine, February issue. Taylor cofounded the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
'We need to educate people! It should be taught in schools. My God, the highest rate of HIV infection is between [ages] 13 to 24. What is a 13-year-old doing fucking around anyway? ... What do their parents teach them? I would like to get all the parents together and give them holy shit. Because it's their responsibility, not the government's.' — Taylor to A&U magazine.
'I know his [George W. Bush's] best friend, which doesn't mean he's like Bush — they couldn't be more opposite. I've asked him to get some messages to Bush including that I would like to be an ambassador of AIDS for the country. They have no one representing AIDS and I am the person to do it.' — Taylor to A&U.
'So you want to hear that we are sleeping together, that we are fucking every night? Of course we do!' — Lena Katina, 17, of the Russian female pop duo t.A.T.u. to Britain's Diva magazine, March issue. Katina and partner Julia Volkova, 18, passionately make out in the video for their international No. 1 hit 'All The Things She Said.'
'This is the message [of our video]: We wanted to say that everybody shouldn't be afraid of their feelings. If it's real feeling, why not? If you love, it doesn't matter if girl loves girl, or boy love boy or something, or girl love boy. It's just love and we shouldn't be afraid of this crowd's opinions. Stupid things.' — Lena Katina to Diva.
'I never felt I was in, you know?' — Lily Tomlin when asked by Curve magazine if it would have made a difference in her career if she had come out earlier, in the April issue.
'I'm like Kennedy. I came up in a time when [sexuality] was never discussed. I never made any kind of deception about it, [but] for some people, I've never been as out as they might have wanted me to be. ... I have a lot of funny feelings about movements. The rhetoric is too ridiculous, it's too over-the-top.' — Tomlin to the Memphis, Tenn., daily newspaper The Commercial Appeal, Feb. 28.
'My family is very poor. I wanted to come to Germany to start a new life. Another reason was the opportunity to live a freer life in Germany. This involves my sexual tendencies toward men. I had expected problems and disadvantages in relation to this in Jordan.' — Key Al Qaeda informant Shadi Abdullah to U.S. investigators, as quoted by The New York Times, Feb. 17.
'I go to what is considered a very 'Chelsea' gym, and I can't tell you how many guys who look like standard-issue steroid queens have come up to me and said they loved The Hours. And that makes me feel so great. I am awed by where my gay readers are willing to go.' — The Hours author Michael Cunningham to The Gay & Lesbian Review, March/April issue.
