"Almost anyone else in the state can apply to adopt: people who are single, or have a history of substance abuse or violence ... . About 25 percent of the state's foster children who are adopted go to a single parent, a figure that jumps to about 40 percent in Miami-Dade County, according to DCF statistics used in the lawsuit." -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel in a report on a judge's upholding of the ban on adoption by gays in Florida.
"We can win the freedom to marry. Possibly within five years. This bold declaration, which I hope becomes a rallying cry, raises many Questions-- not the least of which are: Why marriage and why now? Who's 'we'? How do we do it? And, five years?" -- Evan Wolfson in The Advocate, Sept. 11.
"Marriage is many things in our society. It is an important choice that belongs to couples in love. In fact, many people consider their choice of partner the most important choice they ever make. Civil marriage is also a legal gateway to a vast array of protections, responsibilities, and benefits ( most of which cannot be replicated in any other way ) . These include access to healthcare and medical decision-making for your partner and your children; parenting and immigration rights; inheritance, taxation, social security, and other government benefits; rules for ending a relationship while protecting both parties; and the simple ability to pool resources to buy or transfer property without adverse tax treatment." -- Wolfson.
"Marriage discrimination wreaks real harms-- kids teased because they don't have a 'real family,' a non-biological parent told he or she cannot pick up an ailing child at the school because of not being legally related, couples unable to transfer income or property between them." -- Wolfson.
"This is one of the most appalling, terrifying, fantastic stories you'll ever read. Ellen DeGeneres is only a tiny portion of it. The title, 'Call Me Crazy' sounds like a funny, daffy tale, right? Wrong. Anne truly believes that she was two people. That she's been insane all her life. That she only came together exactly one year ago this month, when she was found wandering in Fresno, out of her head, supposedly babbling about how she has to board a space ship." -- Barbara Walters to the media about her Sept. 5 interview with Anne Heche on the new 20/20 Wednesday show on ABC. Heche will also be on The View Sept. 7.
"Antonio Perdomo, the September 2001 Playgirl Magazine cover guy, reveals his other name, his male-to-male sexual orientation, and the fact that, for fun, he works as a male escort in Las Vegas, Nevada." -- From the website www.notesfromhollywood.com .
"The principal of a Wilmette [ Illinois ] middle school used to be a man, but now she's a woman, and parents meeting her for the first time Tuesday walked away with mixed feelings. Deanna Reed, formerly Donald Reed, has been principal at Marie Murphy Middle School in the North Shore suburb for 12 years. Many of the parents who showed up for a meeting with her said they were caught off-guard by the announcement of the sex change, which was made in letters mailed last week." -- Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 29 article. Response from parents was mixed. The school board found out only recently, and voted to keep Reed.
"They [ teachers ] said Dr. Reed has undergone a transgender reassignment and that means he has changed from a male to a female and will be coming back to school as a female, legally, physically and every other way." -- A spokesman told the Sun-Times.
"For 400 years, lesbians have been thought to be invisible in the works of William Shakespeare. But now a distinguished American academic has identified a bevy of Sapphic heroines in his plays. Hermione, Portia and Beatrice were apparently gay. And Cleopatra's household was a hotbed of same-sex affection. Not only the Egyptian Queen but the queen of the fairies, Titania, had lesbian tendencies too, according to the remarkable new insights of Dr. Theodora Jankowski, a former professor of English literature at the University of Washington." -- The London Observer.
"In The Winter's Tale, Hermione disappears for 16 years having been accused by her husband of having an affair. Jankowski has raised the possibility that, cared for in secret, her courtier Paulina attended to 'all of Hermione's needs'. The 'removed house' in which it is hinted that Hermione was hidden, 'represented a secure, private place where a woman could engage in erotic interludes with another woman without arousing suspicion'. ... Portia in The Merchant of Venice marries Bassanio, Jankowski explains, 'with little evidence of real love' on either side. 'There are few Shakespearean couples who marry with less of a history of love or serious courtship.' Portia is far more likely to be in love with Nerissa, her serving woman, we should have realised. ... Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, played by Emma Thompson in a 1993 film, may have been the lover of Hero, with whom she shared a bed for a year. ... Jankowski also perceives a series of 'power relationships' between women and their servants in Shakespeare plays." -- The London Observer.
" [ Poet EDNA St. Vincent Millay's ] affairs with men and women were the fresh wood she fed to the fire of her poetry, often several logs at a time. In any affair, one person loves more than the other, but Millay was almost invariably the better loved." -- New Yorker Sept. 3 article reviewing two new books on the writer.
"DEGENERES doesn't have a single bitter remark to make about her ex, though she never does mention Heche by name; she's simply referred to as 'her' or 'she.' ... She asserts that she's glad she plunged headfirst into what some people found an excessively open love affair, yet she also seems to acknowledge that she may have grandstanded a bit and turned off some of her audience. 'I was madly in love. And that is something that I don't regret ... . [ But ] I haven't spoken to her since she left. I don't have any answers.'" -- From the Entertainment Weekly Sept. 7 special fall TV preview issue.
"WHAT'S MOST radical about [ Ellen's new CBS ] show is that it isn't radical at all. 'We've created this wonderful fantasy town where nobody has a problem with [ Ellen's character being gay ] . It's like those ridiculous shows I grew up watching, like Petticoat Junction-- a classic TV show that makes you feel good.'" -- Ellen to Entertainment Weekly.
