I Didn't Say It ...

Orrin Hatch, the Republican Senator from Utah, waving the white flag on marriage equality:

"Let’s face it, anybody who does not believe that gay marriage is going to be the law of the land just hasn’t been observing what’s going on. There is a question whether [the courts] should be able to tell the states what they can or cannot do with something as important as marriage, but the trend right now in the courts is to permit gay marriage and anybody who doesn’t admit that just isn’t living in the real world. We have an excellent federal bench [in Utah]. Other federal judges down there might not have arrived at the same conclusion that these two have. But I think it’s a portent of the future that sooner or later gay marriage is probably going to be approved by the Supreme Court of the United States, certainly as the people in this country move towards it, especially young people. I don’t think that’s the right way to go; on the other hand, I do accept whatever the courts say."

Of course, he wants y’all, and his constituents to know, that he doesn’t like it, he just knows it going to happen.

Nasir Fleming, on being crowned homecoming queen at Danbury High School:

"My main reason for wanting to win prom queen is to show the school, and hopefully the world, that if a spunky, odd gay kid can win prom queen, then anyone can! This message is mainly for transgendered people, because they seem to face so much backlash for simply being themselves. If I can win a title that is out of my gender, anyone else should be able to, including transgendered people.”

I called him a hero earlier this week and that still stands.

Frank Bruni, on The Gay Kiss:

"A kiss is nothing. On the sidewalks, in the park, I see one every few minutes, a real kiss, lip to lip. It barely registers. It’s as unremarkable as a car horn in traffic, as an umbrella in rain. And yet a kiss is everything. A kiss can stop the world. The football player Michael Sam recently demonstrated as much.  … I still sometimes feel panic when my partner, meeting me in a restaurant, gives me a perfunctory kiss on the lips. And yet I feel robbed — wronged — if I sense that an awareness of other people’s gazes and a fear of their judgment are preventing him from doing that. We shouldn’t be bound that way, and on the day of the pro football draft, in front of the cameras, Sam rightly declared that he wasn’t. He did so with a gesture at once humdrum and heroic, a gesture that connects everyone who has been in love and affirms what every love shares: physical tenderness, eye-to-eye togetherness. It was something to behold. It was something to hold on to."

It’s just a kiss, y’all.

RuPaul, on using the word ‘Tranny':

"Does the word ‘tranny’ bother me? No. I love the word ‘tranny.’ … It’s not the transexual community who’s saying that. These are fringe people who are looking for storylines to strengthen their identity as victims. That is what we are dealing with. It’s not the trans community. ‘Cause most people who are trans have been through hell and high water… But some people haven’t and they’ve used their victimhood to create a situation where, ‘No! You look at me! I want you to see me the way you’re supposed to see me!’ You know, if your idea of happiness has to do with someone else changing what they say, what they do, you are in for a fucking hard-ass road… I dance to the beat of a different drummer. I believe everybody — you can be whatever the hell you wanna be, I ain’t stopping you. But don’t you dare tell me what I can do or what I can’t — say or can’t do. It’s just words, like, ‘Yeah, you hurt me!’ Bitch, you need to get stronger. If you’re upset by something I said you have bigger problems than you think.”

Much as I love Ru, she needs to stop and think.

If using that word offends the transgender community then you stop using that word. Stop.

Phil Robertson, of Duck Dynasty, giving an Easter Sunday sermon juts filled with hate:

"They were mad at me…You say, why’d they get mad at you? Cuz instead of acknowledging their sin, like you had better do, they railed against me for giving them the truth about their sins. Don’t deceive yourselves. You want the verse? The news media didn’t even know it was a verse! They thought I was just mouthing off. Is homosexual behavior a sin? The guy asked me. I said, ‘do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?’ Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor the idolators nor adulterers nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

STFU.

Mark Ruffalo, on his hesitancy to accept a role in HBO’s The Normal Heart because he’s a straight actor:

“I'd heard about [director Ryan Murphy] and I was a little nervous about saying no without at least speaking to him, giving him the respect that he deserves. We met, and my thinking at the time was, ‘Aren't we at the place in our culture, in our development, where a gay man should be playing this part?’ That was kind of a concern for me. Politically speaking, it felt like that was the right thing for this play and for this movie at this time. And Ryan said, very clearly, ‘That's the antithesis of what this movie is about. It doesn't matter what your sexual preference is. It matters what actor I think should play this part.’”

If that’s the case, then all straight roles should go to straight actors? No, it’s about whom can best fulfill the vision the director has in mind, and I think Ruffalo was a fabulous choice.

“Dr.” Robi Ludwig, a reality TV psychotherapist, on how Santa Barbara mass murderer Elliot Rodger may have gone on the rampage because he couldn’t cope with his “homosexual impulses”:

 “When I was first listening to him, I was like, ‘Oh, he’s angry with women for rejecting him. And then I started to have a different idea: Is this somebody who is trying to fight against his homosexual impulses? Was he angry with women because they were taking away men from him? But this is a kid who couldn’t connect, and felt enraged, and wanted to obliterate anyone that made him feel like a nothing.”

Go back to playing a doctor on TV because you have no basis in reality. Charlatan.

“Dr.” Robi Ludwig, reality TV psychotherapist, backtracking on her crazy:

“I was misunderstood on @FoxNews this weekend, when I was asked to hypothesize several factors which could have triggered ‪#‎ElliotRoger's spree killing. I in NO way meant to indicate being a homosexual or having homosexual impulses is a cause for spree killing.”

Funny, cuz it’s kinda what you said.

Charlie Dent, Republican Pennsylvania Representative, coming out for marriage equality:

"Life is too short to have the force of government stand in the way of two adults whose pursuit of happiness includes marriage. [In] conversations with my family, I have come to realize that they already see the world through that lens. As a Republican, I value equality, personal freedom and a more limited role for government in our lives. I believe this philosophy should apply to the issue of marriage as well."

Funny he didn’t feel that way when it seemed like marriage equality would never happen in his state.

Color my cynical, but I feel he’s climbed aboard the bandwagon after-the-fact to make himself look better. He doesn’t.

Jim Carrey, giving the commencement speech at Maharishi University of Management in Iowa:

“The decisions we make in this moment are based in either love or fear. So many of us chose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect so we never ask the universe for it. I’m saying I’m the proof that you can ask the universe for it. And if it doesn’t happen for you right away, it’s only because the universe is so busy fulfilling my order.”

It never hurts to ask.

Maya Angelou, in 2009, asking New York state senators to support marriage equality.

 “I would ask every man and every woman who’s had the blessing of having children, ‘Would you deny your son or your daughter the ecstasy of finding someone to love?’ To love someone takes a lot of courage. So how much more is one challenged when the love is of the same sex and the laws say, ‘I forbid you from loving this person’?”

RIP

Great lady.