Straight Talk About Being Gay

"The majority of social conservatives oppose gay marriage; they oppose gay citizens serving their country in the military; they oppose gay citizens raising children; they oppose protecting gay citizens from workplace discrimination; they oppose including gays in hate-crime legislation, while including every other victimized group; they oppose civil unions; they oppose domestic partnerships; they oppose ... well, they oppose, for the most part, every single practical measure that brings gay citizens into the mainstream of American life. This is simply bizarre. Can you think of any other legal, noncriminal minority in society toward which social conservatives have nothing but a negative social policy?"

Andrew Sullivan The Wall Street Journal 10/08/2003

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"Love between two persons, whether of the same sex or of a different sex, is to be treasured and respected. To love another, whether of the same sex or of a different sex, is to have entered the area of richest human experience."
Cardinal Basil Hume, Roman Catholic, Britain

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"The next time someone asks you, 'Hey, howdja get to be a homosexual anyway?' tell them, 'Homosexuals are chosen first on talent, then interview, then the swimsuit and evening gown competition pretty much gets rid of the rest of them."

Karen Williams

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Is homosexuality a ‘soul-deadening’ perversion? Let’s try an experiment:
I’m going to rip out the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling; burn Handel’s Messiah; slash the Mona Lisa; bury Walt Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass’; incinerate every Tchaikovsky score; torch every Greta Garbo film; ban every Bessie Smith song; and grind every Marlene Dietrich performance to dust.
Then we can evaluate what kind of ‘soul-deadening’ world we would live in without gay people.

Preston Reese Letter to the Editor, Sacramento Bee, July 30, 1999

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The opportunity to be threatened, humiliated and to live in fear of being beaten to death is the only 'special right' our culture bestows on homosexuals.

Denver Post columnist Diane Carman

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In her eagerness to tell us what’s what, Dr, Laura has announced that God makes mistakes. What else could a ‘biological error’ be? It means that God made everyone, but was distracted by an ice cream truck when he was working on Andy Dick and Gertrude Stein and failed to do a Martha Stewart-quality job. In queers, Dr. Laura has seen His work and she has judged it to be poor.

Liz Langley, Columnist Miami Herald

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“The Bible contains six admonishments for homosexuals and 362 admonishments for heterosexuals. That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love heterosexuals. It just means that they need more supervision.”

Lynne Lauer, Comedian

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“(The gay) community became a model of what real family values were, what real loving was, real kindness, real compassion—taking anger and turning it into creative energy, not letting themselves be rolled over, but standing up for what they believed in. (They were) coming out in the face of being disowned by everyone, including their religious community, their parents, the rest of their families, their friends…. I watched this community dropping their secrets, coming out and being brave and courageous and heroic, and when they started doing that, those of us who are straight started saying, ‘Wait a minute, we want to be involved with you. We want to be like you. We’re inspired by you.’”

Judith Light, Actor, Activist

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“When I stand up and say that I want to oppose discrimination of people because of their sexual orientation, it is not because I want to seem nice. It is because, if I don’t, everything in my life that I have done, will have been in vain.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu
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I’m sitting in my American History class at Irmo High School in Irmo, S.C. I’m sixteen years old, already feeling unwanted by the school that would later become infamous for being first to ban an appearance by The Indigo Girls. As I sit in the second-to-last row, my teacher talks about an America founded on equality, freedom and justice. At the same time, five or six surrounding classmates are teaching me about an America that hates faggots and bullies them. My teacher never once intervenes; I suffer in silence.

Chris Tuttle in The Advocate 2/1/2000