Ju st out ▼ January 3 . 1 9 0 7 T 1 9
specific.... Whatever gender decides to hitch up
should be their business.”
— U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-lll.)
“ It’s encouraging to see how far our fast-paced
civil rights movement has traveled in four years.
When candidate [Bill] Clinton was asked about
gay marriage [in 1992], it was a throwaway
question. His negative reply sounded no alarms.
Gay marriage seemed a century away. What
changed was our prospects, not Clinton’s stance.
He’s just out of step with a future that’s arriving
more quickly than most of us had ever dreamed.”
— Syndicated lesbian columnist Deb Price
Chastity Bono grand marshaling Portland’s 1996 Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade
“The Gay Men’s Chorus in New York...did this
little parody called...“The Life and Loves of
Martina,” and they have various people playing
Rita Mae Brown and Judy Nelson and I don’t
know who else. It was sort of a tongue-in-cheek
tribute to me. A one-time thing. Now they’re sup
posedly going to do a six-week run on the West
Coast. And I’m like, OK, so you want me to be out,
you want me to tell you everything about my life,
and then you make fun of it! And this is my peo
ple! This is not Pat Buchanan or Pat Robertson that
is doing it. This is my people doing it! I don’t need
this shit. So, from now on I’m not telling anything
about my private life.”
— Martina Navratilova, to Denver’s Out Front
President of the United States.”
— Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter,
in The Los Angeles Times
“ If they don’t want me to get ‘married,’ if
that’s bugging ‘them,’ fine. But I do believe that
as an American citizen, a law-abiding, taxpay
ing— major taxpaying— citizen, that 1 should be
allowed the same rights, the same pursuit of hap
piness that every other citizen enjoys....
Whatever they want to call it. As long as we have
the same legal benefits and protections for me,
and for my family. That’s all.”
— Lesbian rocker Melissa Etheridge, to
Newsweek
“[The] principal House sponsor [of the feder
al Defense o f M arriage Act], Bob Barr of
Georgia, his district office confirms, has been
married three times, which raises the question of
PHOTO BY UNDA KUEV^R
“ I like dogs better [than people]. They give
you unconditional love. They either lick your
face or bite you, but you always know where
they’re coming from. With people, you never
know which ones will bite. The difference
between dogs and men is that you know where
dogs sleep at night.”
—Gay, HIV-positive Olympic gold medal
diver Greg Louganis, to the Philadelphia Inquirer
“[W ithout consulting the rest of us mere mor
tals, [the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force]
suddenly rename[d] us ‘the gay-lesbian-bisexual-
transgendered movement’ or, as one of NGLTF’s
leaders recently said in a press release, ‘the
g/l/b/t community.’ Sounds like a sandwich. ..
NGLTF’s often dated and unrealistic political
dogma will be cast off by the gay masses in due
time.”
— Out magazine columnist
Michelangelo Signorile
“We must make it clear that a platform of ‘1 hate
gay men and women’ is not a way to become
G ay S ensibility
“Gay people...w ere the first to find me, and
they get everything, they’re so sharp. I’ll look
out in the audience and I see three or four gay
guys right in the front row, or a couple of les
bians, I know it’s gonna be a good show.”
— Joan Rivers, to Denver’s Out Front
“ He went [to the Republican convention] as a
Dole delegate and I went to see some of the tack
iest women I’d ever seen, bejeweled in red-
white-and-blue glitter, with high hair and ele
phant ear-bobs the size o f tennis balls.”
— Rob Morris, speaking of his lover, U.S.
Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.)
“They offered me either the Queen or the
Lincoln [bedrooms]. Being from San Francisco,
the Queen intrigued me. [But] I’m doing the
Lincoln. He cut me loose.”
— San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, on
spending the night at the White House
“ I clicked my heels and said, ‘There’s no place
like home, there’s no place like home.’ I just
didn’t have those ruby slippers.”
— Anacortes, Wash., boat mechanic
Steve Burton to The Associated Press
when he couldn’t get home
because flooding closed Interstate 5
T he E pidemic
“Even within the safer-sex parameters, you
add up all the odds over an entire lifetime, and
many gay men feel it’s inevitable they’ll contract
HIV. That’s a very hard psychological barrier to
break through for prevention, education and,
indeed, just morale.”
— New Republic Senior Editor Andrew
Sullivan to The New York Times. Sullivan
is HIV positive.
“Most times the only gay or lesbian face people
know of is who they see in the pride parade. To
judge us on that would be like judging heterosexu
als after watching Mardi Gras.”
—Candace Gingrich, House Speaker Newt
Gingrich’s lesbian sister, to the
Baltimore Alternative
“[In West Hollywood], status is established by
the make of your car, the style of your hair, the cost
o f your clothing, the source of your mineral water,
the shape o f your nose...the breed of your
dog...the influence of your agent and the tone of
your body.”
—The new Fodor’s Gay Guide to the USA
why the act doesn’t contain a three-strikes-and-
you’re-out provision.”
— New York Times columnist Frank Rich
Greg Louganis in Portland on a promotional tour fo r his book. Breaking the Surface
T he S ame -S ex
M arriage F ight
“ I wish President Clinton were more direct,
more hands-on [about AIDS]. He’s been given a
chance to turn the world around and be outspo
ken on an issue that’s controversial to still so
many people, but it would take enormous daring.
I had hoped that he would. I really thought he
had the chutzpah and the cojones.”
— Elizabeth Taylor, to The Advocate.
(Cojones is Spanish for balls.)
“Most times the only gay or lesbian face people know o f is who
they see in the pride parade. To judge us on that would be like
judging heterosexuals after watching Mardi Gras.
—Candace Gingrich
”
“You would think that those who are always
talking about family values would want to create
an environment of permanent relationships for
people o f the same sex. But they’re not advocat
ing family values. They’re advocating their val
ues.... I still get this shit full tim e.... They just
are haters, period.”
— San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, to
The Advocate
“ It’s our Pearl Harbor.”
—Traditional Values Coalition Chairman Lou
Sheldon, on the pending Hawaii Supreme Court
case that is expected to legalize same-sex
marriage there
“ I’m looking for a hunk m yself.... People that
want to get married should do that [get married].
I don’t see any reason why it has to be gender-
Candace Gingrich
(right) with
Barbara Roberts
at the 1996
National
Democratic
Convention in
Chicago