ju st o u t ▼
“As a nation, the United States is living
McLife. There’s a Starbucks, a Gap and a Borders
Bookstore on every comer and a corporate sponsor
for everything from gay pride celebrations to foot
ball stadiums to the Creating Change Confer
ence.... The gay community is no more immune
from the homogenization and flattening of
American culture than is the rest of the country.
After all, we invented clones. We have McGhettos,
McMuscles, McLeather and, logically, McElan-
gelo [Signorile] and company. (It’s not a life, as
that anachronistic liquor ad claims. Not anymore.
It’s a lifestyle.)”
— Columnist John Fall writing for the
Web site cruisingforsex.com
Continued from page 19
“I lived with a sense of shame for a long, long
time. Every single interview I did, I dodged that
dreaded question ‘Are you gay?’ I tried to be witty,
I tried to find ways to get around it, and my answer
was always, ‘My private life is my private life.’
And it is, but my sexuality is as much a part of me
as my skin color.... I tried for a long time to justi
fy why it should be hidden, for as long as I could,
and then I finally got to a point where it was more
important for me to live my life honestly and to be
proud of who I am, than my fame. And ironically,
as soon as I was honest, I became more famous. So
much for those people who said that it would ruin
my career.”
— Ellen DeGeneres as she received the
Human Rights Campaign’s 1997 Civil Rights
Leadership Award, Nov. 8
“I saw Ellen [DeGeneres] across a crowded
room, not knowing anything at all except how I
just was drawn to her. I was not gay before I met
her. I never thought about it. Nobody could have
been more confused than me. But it was very clear
from the second 1 saw her that this was something
more powerful than anything I could have con
trolled.... I fell in love with a person. I don’t think
it was immediately a sexual attraction. I think it
was just, wow, you are the most incredible person
I’ve ever met and I want to be with you. Souls con
nect, and there are times when souls come togeth
er and they are just meant to be. It was just incred
ible.”
— Actress Anne Heche on
The Oprah Winfrey Show, April 30
BILL AND AL
“On issue after issue involving gays and les
bians, survey after survey shows that the most
important determinant of people’s attitude is
whether they are aware, whether they knowingly
have had a family [situation] or a friendship or a
work relation with a gay person.... So I think one
of the greatest things we have to do still is just to
increase the ability of Americans who do not yet
know that gays and lesbians are their fellow
Americans, in every sense of the word, to feel that
way. I think it’s very important.”
— President Clinton in a Nov. 8 address to the
Human Rights Campaign’s national dinner
“It is time for all Americans to recognize that
the issues that face gays and lesbians in this coun
try are not narrow, special interests, they are mat
ters of basic human and civil rights.”
— Vice President Gore at the National Gay
and Lesbian Task Force’s annual awards
ceremony, Sept. 15
“We have no intention of pulling this nominee
[proposed Luxembourg ambassador James
Hormel]. It’s an absolute outrage that any member
of the United States Senate would block a nominee
based on his or her sexual preference.”
— White House spokesman
Joe Lockhart, Nov. 15
SEX AND
ASSIMILATION
“There are those people who wish to make us,
quote unquote, palatable to the mainstream. That’s
how they think we are going to be able to gain our
rights. I don’t believe that. I believe that we have
Edm und White
our culture and our own way of doing things. I also
think that if we had spent half as much time deal
ing with the government as w e’ve spent yelling at
each other, we would have had our rights 20 years
ago.”
— Comic Lea DeLaria to
The New York Times, Aug. 20
“I did not fight all those hideous battles, and
watch all those people die, so you young kids
could go out there and make the same fucking mis
takes we made in the first place that killed so many
of my, our, brothers. We did not fight those battles
so you could get drugged out of your tits and fuck
your minds out and dance for three days straight
and then go to the gyms and pump your bodies
back into some balloon full of hot air and then go
to work, go back into the world and just sit on your
asses until the following weekend. Is your most
important purpose in life to look good without a
shirt on the dance floor? That was how my gener
ation behaved when they were your age and
they’re all dead!”
— Author/activist Larry Kramer writing in
New York City’s LGNY, July 6
1 9 . 1 9 9 7 T 21
girl? Who knows? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe
not. It depends. If I have to just play gay, I’m not
unhappy about that either. I don’t have a problem
playing a range of gay characters, if that’s what I
have to do.”
— Gay actor Rupert Everett (My Best
F riend’s Wedding) to The Associated Press
“ By declaring her homosexuality, Jodie
would be an inspiration to thousands and thou
sands o f others like her. If Jodie is indeed a les
bian— and I assume she is— she should come
out.”
— Actress Jodie Foster’s brother Buddy to
The National Enquirer, May 27
“Another thing that really disturbs me is the
AIDS organizations benefiting from and hosting
the Circuit parties. They should not be hosting par
ties where a lot of destructive action is going on.
They need to pull away from these parties and say,
‘As AIDS service and prevention organizations,
we must distance ourselves from this scene.’
Instead, they are celebrating and promoting them.”
— Author Michelangelo Signorile in the AIDS
magazine Art & Understanding, August issue
“One thousand forty-nine. That is the number
of federal statues that provide benefits, rights and
privileges to individuals who have the legal right
to marry. I am at the end of my patience with gays
who say they’re not interested in obtaining the
right to legally marry. Those 1,049 benefits, rights
and privileges, which amount to respect, don’t
interest them. Dumb, stupid, blind gays opposed to
gay marriage obviously have not had to watch
helplessly as a lover who has no citizenship or a
green card is deported from America like a com
mon criminal. Demanding legalized gay marriage
is a pragmatic decision! It is not about ‘copying’
them. It is about money and rights.”
— Author Larry Kramer
in the May 27 Advocate
IN AND OUT
“My parents are very supportive of me. God, I
generally don’t like to go into personal issues, I’m
pretty private. I was never in the closet, anyway,
but I think that, within a family that’s heterosexu
al, you’re always going to be an outsider if you’re
gay. I don’t think it’s easy
to grow up gay anywhere,
especially
with
the
amount of fear and un-
comfortableness that sur
rounds sexuality, let alone
homosexuality. It’s pain
ful. But I think w e’ve
made some big strides
now; we don’t have to
apologize for being gay. I
believe we were created
this way by God.”
—Jason Gould, son of
Barbra Streisand and
Elliot Gould, to London’s
Gay Times, July issue
“ I get very irritated
with all the discussions
about letting down one’s
guard toward safe sex. I
mean, when people talk
about unprotected sex as
the ultimate sign of love, I
think that’s just pure folly.
I’m not at all for any of
that. But I’m also not for
fidelity. It seems to me that
they are entirely unrelated
issues. Either safe sex
works, or it doesn’t. If it
doesn’t work, then the
only solution, logically, is
to be totally chaste. If it
does work, it doesn’t make
much difference whether
you’re having safe sex
with one person or 10 peo
ple. If the rate of infection
is creeping up again, it’s
probably because there’s a
younger group that feels
that somehow they’re not
going to be touched by this
or they don’t care.”
— Author Edmund White
to the San Francisco
Chronicle, Oct. 4 Barbra Streisand in 1962
Lea DeLaria
“ My own personal in-house w riter— the
beautiful, the brilliant, my beloved Jane
Wagner— was off writing a pilot...hopefully for
me.”
— Lily Tomlin, lamenting that her house
mate was unavailable to write her speech to the
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s
Media Awards in Los Angeles, March 16
MEOW!
“It almost seems like actual S/M sex is sec
ondary to the lifestyle and to the culture that’s
built up around clubs and runs and beer busts and
contests. T hey’re so boring! Is there anything
that makes S/M sex seem less erotic than the fan
tasy sequences in these contests?... I remember
the first leather bars I went to when I was 16
years old. They were gay biker bars. They were
dangerous. Now I’m sure there are AIDS quilt
ing bees and fucking AA meetings in the back of
every leather bar!”
— Syndicated gay advice columnist
Dan Savage to San Francisco’s
Cuir Underground, June issue
“I freakin’ can’t under
stand people spending so
much time trying to out
me. w
— Actress Lucy Lawless
(Xena, Warrior Princess)
to Los Angeles’ Lesbian
News, November issue
“ [W]hen I told him that job discrimination
against gays is legal in 41 states, he actually said
to me that that was unconstitutional. While he
was a congressman. Frightening.”
— Chastity Bono on dad Sonny Bono,
a Republican representative from
California, to The New York Times, July 9
“Are people going to find
me appealing as a homo
sexual man? Will there be
a problem when they see
me making out with a
“ In fishnet and feathers, h e ’s a unisex
w reck.”
— Fashion critic Mr. Blackwell naming
Chicago Bulls transvestite Dennis Rodman as
last year’s “Worst-Dressed Woman,” Jan. 14