"I didn't become an actor to play a gay guy the rest of my life. I became an actor to play many roles. I look forward to the challenge of showing people that I can do other things." ... Sean Hayes, Jack on Will & Grace, to Miami's Contax Guide, July 19.
"Every society depends on trust and loyalty, on courtesy and kindness, on bravery and reverence. These are the values of scouting and these are the values of America." ... George W. Bush addressing the National Scout Jamboree July 30 in Bowling Green, Va. The Scouts ban gays.
"We went to the Fourth of July parade in Coronado, and this is much more entertaining." ... Local resident Sue Southwell as she watched San Diego's gay-pride parade July 28 with her husband Bill, to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
"The Republicans have adopted a new strategy in attacking gay and lesbian Americans. It's long been clear that there will be no progress at the federal level in advancing policies to protect GLBT people from prejudice as long as Republicans have control, but what the Boy Scout and faith-based measures show us is that there is a new right-wing assault, supported by the Bush Administration and Republican leadership, to undermine state and local efforts aimed at ending anti-gay discrimination." ... Gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., in a July 23 press release.
"The crazed gunman who killed one person and wounded six after opening fire in a Roanoke, Virginia, gay bar has just received four life-terms for his crime. He was prosecuted in a conservative state under existing laws, just as Matthew Shepard's murderers were. More evidence of the complete pointlessness of hate crimes laws...except to further balkanize this country." ... Gay author Andrew Sullivan writing at andrewsullivan.com, July 24.
"I have to take a large number of pills a day, like 23 or 24 pharmaceutical drugs, and then when I'm being really good about, various herbs and supplements. I take them at three different times a day because some of them have dietary restrictions and so one like Crixivan ( the brand name for indinavir, an anti-viral drug ) . I cannot eat for two hours before I take it or an hour after I take it. I have to take that drug three times a day, so that's three three-hour ( periods ) where's there's no food. So just trying to be reasonably compliant with those kinds of things. Then there's the drugs you take to counteract the drugs, the side effects of the drugs. The Crixivan, in particular, gives me some anxiety for a few hours after I take each dose. It's not too many hours until I have to take another one, so this is a good part of the time. So I have Ativan ( brand name for lorazepam ) that I take when I particularly feel that anxiety. It's usually dealt with if I'm alone for a few minutes or sit at my computer. But when I go into the city and I have lots going on, I always take it. I never took anxiety medications before. Certainly, with relationships with people, there are people who just can't get over being sympathetic and weepy about it even still, and then there are people who don't understand clue one about it. And then there's still people who I feel have judged me on the fact that I carry this virus. So it really changed a lot the kind of friends I made and people I was around. I'm in a community in a small town in Pennsylvania where I'm pretty well-known as an AIDS activist and a person with AIDS. There have been people who clearly have had a hard time with it, but there also have been people who have come around. You know, you have to have some faith in human nature. Most people's first response is not to be mean or insensitive." ... Poz magazine publisher Sean Strub to CNN, on the 20th anniversary of AIDS.
"I certainly have known hundreds who have died. But a lot of that piled on itself as I became more involved in the epidemic. You know, I was making new friends who were positive. I have had six roommates since I've been in New York, and five of them are dead. In 1983, I had a big party at my place that I had then in Pennsylvania, and I had a picture of everybody. I looked at it not long ago, and one person short of half of them are dead. And these were guys in 1983; I was 25 years old, so these are all my contemporaries." ... Strub.
"To remain disengaged in the face of these violent tragedies sends the wrong message and allows dangerous hate mongers to grossly misinterpret this silence. We urge Congress and the administration to publicly address this unconscionable rash of anti-gay violence. They should use their bully pulpits to let people know this behavior is unacceptable and un-American." ... Human Rights Campaign Executive Director Elizabeth Birch to Congress and President Bush. Willie Houston, 38, was fatally shot in the chest in Nashville, Tenn., earlier this month after the alleged gunman, Lewis Maynard Davidson III, 25, taunted him with anti-gay epithets. Houston had just finished a midnight riverboat cruise with his fiancé, Nedra Jones, and friends when the trouble started. Houston escorted a blind male friend by the arm into a restroom while holding Jones' purse. Inside the restroom, the gunman allegedly hurled anti-gay insults at the friends. He followed them out of the restroom, while continuing his verbal harassment. Davidson then allegedly returned to his car where he retrieved a gun and said, "Now what you got to say?" before firing the weapon at Houston. Police are searching for Davidson and have yet to officially call it a hate crime, saying the investigation is "still very much open." While the victim is reportedly not gay, Tennessee hate crime laws cover violence based on real or perceived sexual orientation. In Las Vegas, Jerry Lee Stamper-Ousley, 24, was found beaten to death on June 30 inside his apartment complex. Police have made no arrests, but the victim had frequented a gay bar earlier that evening. On June 21, high school student Fred Martinez, Jr., 16, was found beaten to death in Cortez, Colo.
"A GROWING homo-rap subculture has cleared ground for lesbian lyricists to bust out. 'We're trying to come up with music we relate to,' says Atlanta's Mz. Platinum, whose debut album, Out the Closet, drops next spring. 'And send a message that we can do this rap thing, too.' Not that lesbians are new to hip-hop ( 'We won't talk about who's in the closet,' Mz. Platinum says ) , but more, like San Francisco's N.I. Double K.I., are holding it down without pretending their manager is their boyfriend. They're here, they're queer...hey, that sounds like the start of a good rap." ... Jane magazine reviewer Nicole Saunders, Sept. 2001 issue.
