<><><>

"Yes, we have set a wedding date. How do I feel about it? I obviously
feel like it's long overdue. I think someday people will look back on
this like women not having the right to vote and segregation and
anything else that seems ridiculous that we don't all have the same
rights."

--Ellen DeGeneres at the Daytime Emmy Awards, June 20.

<><><>

"We've gone from Jerry Falwell hissing at Ellen 'Degenerate' for coming
out on prime time to the Republican candidate for president coming on to
her daytime chat show to wish her well in her pending nuptials."

--Syndicated gay press columnist Chris Crain, June 25.

<><><>

"Gay people get married in California, so why is God taking it out on
the Midwest?"

--Host Jon Stewart on TV's The Daily Show, June 17.

<><><>

"It is nearly summertime in the Year of Our Google, and here in the
golden land known as California the following startling and
once-inconceivable lament can now be heard: Dammit, with gas zooming
toward five bucks a gallon and airlines doubling fares and charging me
for a single checked bag, how the hell am I going to afford to travel to
all my gay friends' legal weddings across the state this summer? Please
note the historic power therein. Because such a peculiar, momentous
string of words hath never before been uttered by man. Or woman. Or
LGBT. Or 'Other.'"

--San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford, June 18.

<><><>

"It's (same-sex marriage in the U.S.) way overdue. It's something that
happened ... almost without a whisper in England, but it was basically
because we weren't that concerned about the word 'marriage.' Because
(the U.S.) is a much more religious society, there are a huge number of
people who want (their) unions to be part of something that they can
place in their religion, so (marriage is) much more important here. I
think that's why it's so long in arriving here, but I think it's
fantastic, obviously."

--Singer George Michael to the Associated Press, June 18.

<><><>

"Mark and I are going to get married in California very soon. Then we're
going to be recognized in New York as legally married. ... Like in
Massachusetts, Californians will realize that gay people getting married
is not a problem for anyone, and then the rest of the country is going
to fall in line."

--Angels in America author Tony Kushner as quoted by New York magazine,
June 22.

<><><>

"When we first got together, and moved into the apartment, it was
difficult because both of us had been living alone, we hadn't had this
other person to trip over. And so we'd start arguments, and Del would
just go out the front door and slam it and walk around the block then
come back. I tried to teach Del to argue back. And then somebody gave us
a kitten, which I've said kept us together for the first year, because
we couldn't work out how to divide the kitten. But we kept ourselves
busy and we bought the house and we got ourselves all wrapped up in each
other, and we kept ourselves in love. And basically, that did it."

--Phyllis Lyon, 83, to Britain's Guardian, June 25. Lyon and Del Martin,
87 -- lesbian activist icons -- were the first same-sex couple married
in San Francisco after same-sex marriage became legal in California on
June 16.

<><><>

"(John McCain) indicated that he would take seriously their requests
that he choose an anti-abortion running mate and would talk more openly
about his opposition to gay marriage -- a pledge he carried out later in
the day by endorsing a ballot measure in California to ban gay
marriage."

--The Los Angeles Times, reporting on a June 26 meeting in Ohio between
Republican presidential candidate John McCain and "several influential
social conservatives who have been critical of him."

<><><>

"It's cuckoo to me that it's against the law for homosexuals to be
married; that to me is against the Constitution. I can't believe that
people in the Supreme Court, who are supposed to be the wisest of all of
us -- it's just like slavery; it's the same thing. I think it's
terrible. ... I just hope President Obama will come in and set them
straight."

--Actress Sigourney Weaver to the Michigan gay newspaper Between The
Lines, June 26.

<><><>

"Sexuality is a tricky question. You get into transgender -- it embraces
all of that -- and you have people's fear and dislike of things that are
different. Nobody is more different to an average person than a
transgender person, and that makes them nervous."

--Gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., to New York's Village Voice, June
17.

<><><>

"Barney [Frank] is a hero in many ways, but he's hung up on trans
issues. I was once too, so I know all these bulls--t arguments inside
out."

--Former National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt
Foreman to New York's Village Voice, June 17.

<><><>

"The sad truth is that gay rights has always been the disposable card of
liberal politics. The very fact of our existence is still
'controversial' even to those who make a noise about being our friends.
We're still the fly in the ointment, the 'divisive issue' that can lose
an election. Just look at the weak-kneed response from the Clinton and
Obama camps when the California supreme court made its landmark decision
overthrowing the ban on same-sex marriage. Both candidates hid behind a
campaign spokesperson and both reaffirmed their 'separate but equal'
policies of civil unions, thereby assuming a stance that would keep them
in comfy solidarity with John McCain come November. The problem, of
course, was that the California court had just ruled that separate was
NOT equal and never would be, so Clinton and Obama both ended up looking
like -- there's no other way to put this -- pussies."

--Tales of the City author Armistead Maupin writing in The Advocate,
July 1.

<><><>

"I always worried what being out would do to my career. But the truth is
I really didn't have a career until I was out -- because I think it was
the first authentic thing I had to offer."

--Actor Alec Mapa -- who plays Gabrielle's gay best friend Vern on
Desperate Housewives, and plays Suzuki St. Pierre, the host of Fashion
Buzz, on Ugly Betty -- to San Diego's Gay & Lesbian Times, June 26.

<><><>

"God knows that a drag queen on roller skates makes for much more
interesting photos and video footage than the Gay Alums of Yale or the
hundreds of families who push strollers down 5th Avenue or the Gay
Officers Action League, the organization of gay and lesbian law
enforcement personnel in NYC."

--Former GLAAD Executive Director Joan Garry writing at The Huffington
Post, June 29..

Assistance: Bill Kelley

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