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| Quote/Unquote |
| By Rex Wockner
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--Openly gay former U.S. Congressman Steve Gunderson, writing in the Sept. 1 Advocate. <><><2><><> "I've been seriously offended by the lack of decent jokes on the subject, and believe me, if there were any more out there, I would have heard them." --Singer George Michael on his April 7 arrest in a Beverly Hills "tea room," in an online chat on the Microsoft Network, July 16. <><><3><><>
--Gay author Quentin Crisp writing in the September Out magazine. <><><4><><> "[He's] a wretched twit who never should have been let out of England." --Author Larry Kramer on James Collard, the new editor of Out magazine, to the Village Voice, Aug. 25. <><><5><><> "Larry's such a sweet old thing, isn't he? Like Quentin Crisp, he's a living treasure--and we should cherish him." --James Collard, new editor of Out magazine, on author Larry Kramer, to the Village Voice, Aug. 25. <><><6><><> "One thing that I have experienced that has surprised me is that the European left is much more style-conscious. I think maybe the American left traditionally has been a little suspicious of style, so I've come up against a little bit of that [in reworking the content of Out magazine]. I think if you actually analyze the content, you can see it hasn't been 'dumbed down' at all. I think the idea that it has comes from people who think if it is beautiful, it has to be dumb." --James Collard, defending his changes as the new editor of Out magazine, to Philadelphia Gay News, Sept. 1. <><><7><><> "There's nothing incompatible with fashion and delivering in other issues. ... We have to do all of those things. Once you make the decision to come out, that makes you automatically a different person in the way that you read popular culture, the way that you shop. We're very conscious of exciting new things. In a way, that is part of being gay. It's not sinful. It doesn't mean that we're less serious." --James Collard, defending his changes as the new editor of Out magazine, to Philadelphia Gay News, Sept. 1. <><><8><><>
--Writer Michelangelo Signorile explaining to this column why he threw a glass of water at new Out magazine Editor James Collard and quit his job. The incident took place Aug. 20 at Manhattan's Blue Water Grill. <><><9><><> "I just vacationed in P-Town with the boyfriend, and let me tell you: gays are just as boringly suburbanized as straights. ... The place was swarmed with lesbian couples vacationing with the kids and gay men clothed head to toe in Nike swooshes, Gap Khakis and HRC equal sign logos -- all of them chomping down on artery- clogging, tastes-like-acoustical-ceiling-tiles, deep-fried processed fast food." --Former NGLTF Communication Director Robert Bray, who now works with the Independent Media Institute, in an Aug. 26 interview with this column. <><><10><><>
--E! News Daily anchorman Steve Kmetko on his relationship with Olympic gold-medal diver Greg Louganis, in an interview with this column, Aug. 31. A recent People magazine report suggested Kmetko and Louganis were more serious. <><><11><><> "I think it's so important for young gay people to see a band that's made up of people who are like they are, and to see that being openly gay is not an issue any more. It's not an issue for us. In our individual, personal lives it may have been at one point, but it's not at all for either of us now." --Heather Grody of the band The Murmurs to Michigan's Between The Lines, Aug. 19. <><><12><><> "It's important for people to see that gay people come in all different shapes and sizes. We are part of a movement of showing people that we look like everyone else. Whether straight or gay, our music is as good as anyone else's." --Heather Grody of the band The Murmurs to Atlanta's Etceteramagazine, Aug. 28. <><><13><><>
--Actress Anne Heche, Ellen DeGeneres' lover, to Vancouver's The Georgia Straight, Aug. 13. <><><14><><> "It's just a feminist, progressive, generic agenda. Anti-racist, economic justice, anti-unbridled capitalism. My character 'Mo,' for example, is probably the last vegetarian!" --Alison Bechdel on her "Dykes To Watch Out For" cartoon strip to Denver's Out Front, Aug. 12. <><><15><><> "My mother remembers clearly the first time she thought I was gay. 'You were about 11, and we were in Paris. We all decided to play dress-up and take silly pictures. You dressed up in my black leather jacket and slicked your hair back, '50s-style. I thought, "Oh, my God." ... It was the last choice of how I wanted you to be.'" <><><16><><> "Tammy [Wynette] taught me how to sing. The voice you hear today on stage singing rock 'n' roll came from Tammy Wynette -- 'Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad' and `D.I.V.O.R.C.E' -- it came from that. After I heard her, I never sang softly ever again." --Lesbian rocker Melissa Etheridge to AP, Sept. 3. <><><17><><> "Well, actually, he did call me 'Missy' one time [during the interview]." --Newsweek reporter John Leland on "ex-gay" poster boy John Paulk, to the Boston radio program "One in Ten," as quoted in Bay Windows, Aug. 20. <><><18><><> "We must rid the world of the destructive notion that tragedy awaits unless we rigidly control sexuality with harsh, arbitrary rules; instead, we must demand that sexuality be governed by love and responsibility. This is gay liberation's enduring message." --Editorial in the Boston-based gay magazine The Guide, September issue. <><><19><><> "Hate crime laws are patently unconstitutional; they violate the guarantee of equal protection under the law as well as punish expression protected by the First Amendment." --Editor's response to a letter to the Boston-based gay magazine The Guide, September issue. <><><20><><> "It's odd that [gay writer] Eric Rofes, a longtime leftist activist, and [gay writer] Andrew Sullivan, known for his conservative views on gay issues as well as on affirmative action and feminism, would be in the same camp. But that's how AIDS denial works. It knows no political ideologies--it only knows the will to run away from reality, to forget the pain and the madness, to convince us that all is well and good. In the case of [AIDS researcher] David Ho, a smart and well-meaning man, it's fueled by his desire to defend his positions to date and his role in getting us to this place [of protease-inhibitor successes]. For Andrew Sullivan, it's about proving to the world--and to himself--that all is under control and that his life (and thus everyone else's) will be fine and normal. For [syndicated sex- advice columnist] Dan Savage, it's about closing himself off in his relationship and pretending AIDS does not exist. And for Eric Rofes, like many who don't want to face prevention realities for similar reasons, it's about protecting gay sexual culture as it now exists, at all costs." --Michelangelo Signorile in his September Out magazine column, his final work there. <><><21><><> "The literature of queer theory, and of the entire postmodern cult for that matter, should be looked at as a bizarre kind of self-help literature in a culture that really no longer has the time for books. It teaches people how to be intellectuals in ten easy steps, simply by repeating a few slogans, adopting a few attitudes, learning a little jargon, and -- presto! -- a genius over-night! And then again, when you've gotten your [doctorate] degree by immersing yourself in this self-help literature and you really don't know anything else or have anything else to teach, it's understandable that you would be reluctant to admit that the emperor is wearing no clothing because those invisible threads are all that stand between you and starvation." --Author Daniel Harris in an interview with Echo Magazine, Aug. 16. |
"For some time I have suggested that the worst thing to happen to
the gay movement was the collapse of Communism. It doesn't take a
Ph.D. in either history or political science to recognize the
direct correlation between the fall of Communism and the
increased attacks on America's gay men and lesbians. The
political right argues that the attacks are in response to our
increased visibility, our activism, and, of course, our agenda!
But we need to understand that the attacks are based on their
essential and desperate need for an opponent."
"If anyone was ever in love with me, it must have been a well-
kept secret, because I never heard of it. Love is a mistake."
"We had a heated discussion and he insulted my sensibilities and
it made me so angry I threw water in his face. They did not want
me to write biting commentary and opinion. They wanted me to do
more feature-driven work and I refused to do that because my
column in Out has always been a space where I could do
commentary, political analysis, features, whatever I wanted. I
think it's important to have commentary and solidly researched
journalism in the same forum. He told me I should tone down the
column and said it had lost passion, which is ludicrous."
"You can put in there if you want that I'm still on the market.
We're just dating."
"I saw on the 5 o'clock news that I was pregnant. Why couldn't
they pick up the phone and find out if I'm pregnant? If the news
doesn't check something like that, they're probably not checking
their stories about the White House either, so we really have no
idea what's going on. They'll just go and report anything."
© 1997-98 BEI