Quotes & Quips

Compiled By Jack Nichols Heavens!—My Goodness!—I Don't Want People to Think I'm I'm…. Heavens, no! There's nothing like that in my past! My goodness, no!... I didn't even know what a fag was! The Rev. Fred Phelps, Pastor of Topeka's Westboro Baptist Church—in "The Man Who Loves to Hate" by Kerry Lauerman, Mother Jones magazine, March/April Blaming Gays for Everything (Family Research Council's Bob) Knight's blue eyes are unblinking as he warns that America's "man-based culture" could shudder and fall with the advent of a sexual revolution brought about by gays. "As man is reduced in stature, all hell breaks loose," he says. "We'll see a breakdown in social organization, with more drug use, more disease, more unwanted pregnancies. You're mainstreaming dysfunction." Robert Dreyfus—"The Holy War On Gays" –Rolling Stone, March 18 A Prominent Conservative Says: Breed Like Me There can be no more radical refusal of self-acceptance than the repudiation of one's own biological nature; and there can be no abdication of responsibility more fundamental than the refusal of a man to become, and to be, a father, or the refusal of a woman to become, and be, a mother. Norman Podhoretz— "Ex-Friends: Falling Out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel & Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer" (Free Press, 244 pages) Conservative Warriors are Losing While some Washington Beltway conservatives are proclaiming a conservative victory, we behold a country pushed to the left. A cultural and political war has been fought and largely won by the social left against gender stereotyping and the nuclear family. Gay/Lesbian and abortion rights, together with a powerful centralized administration enforcing them, are taken for granted by most members of Congress. Gary Bauer has waged war against gays Paul Gottfried—author of "After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State"—Insight on the News, March 22 What Happened to Actress Anne Heche? When I fell in love with Ellen, it mattered to people, it just mattered. It mattered to the people who were working with me, it mattered with my family, it mattered with my friends. It fucking mattered. I lost my family, which I know a lot of you have lost, just because I fell in love with a woman. I lost my friends, who no longer knew what to do with me, just because I fell in love with a woman. All this needs to change. I just want to tell you, and I guess I want to promise you -- as I have been told for the last two years of my life to shut up -- I am not going to shut up. I will continue to say as much as I want to say and as loud as I want to say it for the rest of my life. I have only just begun to speak about the injustices and discrimination against a group of the most incredible people I have ever met in my life. Anne Heche—Speaking at Women's Night, The Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center Whoever He Gets 'Sparked' By I've never been very swift with the ladies…Anyway, the girls here don't trust me—they think I've got loads of girlfriends, but I don't. I've never been in love. I'm not in a relationship right now. If girls want to chase me, that's good (he starts giggling). Brad Renfro in Apt Pupil But as far as me saying, 'I love you,' goes, well, I can't really tell you what love is. I love my friends though, like my best mate Eric—he's 23 and we grew up together. I can really talk to him. When he talks about life he gets really deep and he always enjoys what he's doing. I really admire that….Hell, I don't know what kind of girl I'm looking for. I'm pathetic—I'm just a sucker for anyone who's nice to me! I just go for whoever I get sparked by. Brad Renfro—"The Best of the Superstars 1999—The Year in Sex" (STARbooks Press) A Theologian notices Wall Street's Theology Behind descriptions of market reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand narrative about the inner meaning of human history, why things had gone wrong, and how to put them right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption. But here they were again, and only in thin disguise: chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and, ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets, with a small dose of ascetic belt tightening along the way, especially for the East Asian economies. The East Asians' troubles, voteries argue, derive from free market orthodoxy—they were practitioners of "crony capitalism." Of "ethonocapitalism," of "statist capitalism," not of the one truth faith. Harvey Cox—"The Market as God"—Atlantic Monthly, March Defending Tchaikovsky's Rhythm Method The young Tchaikovsky At a recent seminar on Tchaikovsky's music, for instance, one musicologist suggested in all seriousness that the composer's characteristic use of rhythmic repetition was a "surpressive compulsive release" brought about by homosexual panic…Indeed, had his homosexuality remained a secret, it is unlikely that his musical emotionalism would ever have been characterized as 'neurotic', for it is a wholly typical manifestation of the romantic temperament, balanced by the luminous clarity of his orchestral palette and the innovative yet disciplined formal structures of his mature works… Today's critics, whatever they think of his sexuality, are rightly disposed to rate him as one of the supreme musical geniuses of all time—a conclusion that audiences around the world reached long ago. Terry Teachout—"Tchaikovsky's Passion"—Commentary, March Andrew Sullivan's Catholic Clarity of Thought: A Catholic Criticism What is never quite clear…is what readers—or the author himself (Andrew Sullivan)—should conclude from the evidence he discusses and the arguments he dissects. He summarizes the long course of the argument in this way: 'Homosexuality is not, in the usual sense of the word, normal. But nor is it, from a psychoanalytic context, necessarily abnormal. It is different.' None of this, however, gets us to a moral judgment-—as Sullivan himself realizes in his clearer moments. Andrew Sullivan Gilbert Meilaender—"Body and Soul"—Commonweal, March 12 'Psychology Today' Examines Ex-Gay Ministries Most psychologists say that conversion ministries and therapists are trying to force lesbians and gay men into a mold that doesn't really fit, and the results could lead to depression, addiction, even suicide. Barry Yeoman—"Gay No More?"—Psychology Today, April

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