Pink Ink - Quote-unquote

--Jeff Epperly, editor of Boston's Bay Windows, in a Nov. 27 editorial.

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"[The average American is] less homophobic than he thinks he's supposed to be and more racist than he's willing to admit."

--Gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., to the Washington Post, Dec. 18.

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"Life, to be sure, is not worth living, but if you think it is, then buckle up."

--Gay actor, writer, dandy and celebrated wit Quentin Crisp, 90, to The New York Times, Dec. 20.

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"We're not able to go into the Portland Public Schools and we think that's unfair. Portland is the only public school in the entire United States to have this ban. What makes them so special?"

--Kennith Ellis, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy Recruiting Command in Portland, Ore., to The Oregonian, Dec. 23. Portland's 10 high schools ban military recruiters because the military bans open gays.

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"You guys kept me in beads for 30 years!"

--Cher in a recent appearance at the London gay club Heaven.

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"[A] professional homosexual [whose] primary cause is to be a victim. ... They're doing gays a disservice by being crybabies."

--Gay KABC-Los Angeles talk-radio host Al Rantel on actresses Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche as quoted in Frontiers (Los Angeles edition), Dec. 15.

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"If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative at 35, you have no brain. When you're young it's very natural to be more idealistic and to solve problems from an emotional point of view. That's fine, you need both. You can't be a Vulcan. But as you get older and see how the world really works, it's natural for people to become more conservative. It happened to me."

--Gay KABC-Los Angeles talk-radio host Al Rantel, to Frontiers magazine, Dec. 15.

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"My whole philosophy is that gay people have to claim the power that we already have. We have to say, 'Guess what? We are equal citizens under the law because we are people; we are protected by the Constitution, as all people are; we are, on average, better educated, on average, better salaried; in a lot of ways our community is above average in how it operates.' And we have to say to people, rather than asking for rights, we have to say, 'Guess what? We don't have to ask your permission for who we love or we spend our lives with. We don't need it. If you don't like it, good.'"

--Gay KABC-Los Angeles talk-radio host Al Rantel, to Frontiers magazine, Dec. 15.

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"It's as if someone at NBC took Homer Simpson's directive 'I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my homosexuals fa-LAMING!' and turned it into the character of Jack. Whether he's toting around his pet parrot Guapo, spurning a secretary's advances ('I took a vow before God and my mother I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it!') or flirting with a handsome UPS man (when the delivery guy says, 'I just need a signature, I don't need your phone number,' Jack snaps, 'Don't be so sure'), Jack is out, proud, and in your face."

--The Philadelphia Inquirer on Jack McFarland, Will's flaming best friend on the NBC TV series Will & Grace, Dec. 14.

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"She and Ellen seem so happy together. Ellen came and spent time with her in the Orient while we were filming Return to Paradise. I just don't understand why people make her and Ellen's sexuality such a big issue. Reading in the tabloids that Anne and I were having an affair was not only insulting but rude. I have a girlfriend whom I love dearly and I know that Ellen and Anne love each other dearly. How do you think our families feel when they read that crap?"

--Actor Vince Vaughn to Boston's Bay Windows, Dec. 3.

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"I think Anne Heche's coming out is absolutely remarkable for the film industry in this country. It demonstrates the maturity of the audience to companies like Disney and Universal, that people will just go to her films and accept her in whatever she chooses to do. I just hope this trickles down to younger actors who might still be tempted to listen to the self-interested advice of managers, publicists and agents. Don't believe them! There's no career worth having in which you spend your whole life lying about yourself."

--British actor Sir Ian McKellen to Miami's The Weekly News, Dec. 16.

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"My boyfriend and I are very realistic about the fact that we're both men. He's much better at monogamy than I am. The agreement we have is that if something happens he doesn't want to know about it. It's Clintonian, I think I can neither confirm nor deny that I've had sex outside my relationship. Because denying it may not be true, but confirming it would be the same as telling my boyfriend, and I can't do that. I promised."

--Syndicated gay sex-advice columnist Dan Savage to San Diego's Gay & lesbian Times, Dec. 23.

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"If we don't tell the truth about our sexuality and our sex lives, they're going to think we're lying. That's when they make up stuff, like we fuck gerbils."

--Syndicated gay sex-advice columnist Dan Savage to San Diego's Gay & lesbian Times, Dec. 23.

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"For years, I lived under the curse of AIDS, constantly palpating my glands, fearing fevers, taking endless naps (as much out of a low-level depression as out of genuine weariness), scanning my skin for a dark, raised wine stain, the first sign of Kaposi's Sarcoma, wondering if a cough were the harbinger of pneumonia. I didn't want to lose weight, since I regarded my girth superstitiously as my cushion against infection. Now, looking back over the past 12 months, I notice that I've scarcely thought at all about my imminent death. Instead of fearing a wasting disease, I'm now considering joining Weight Watchers."

--Famed gay author Edmund White writing in Australia's The Age, Dec. 26.

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"One man in his late 30s I know in New York was ready to die 18 months ago. His face was covered with molluscum, he had big KS lesions all over his arms and neck, he'd sold his life insurance in return for a lump sum, he'd quit his job and was ready to return to Boston to die with his parents. Now, after a year on anti-virals, he's plump, his symptoms have vanished, he's moved to San Francisco, he's the marketing director for a big, new firm, working his arse off -- and he's never felt better. His brush with death has not made him any more spiritual. In fact, he's still snorting coke and gobbling Ecstasy -- he's just another disco Lazarus."

--Famed gay author Edmund White writing in Australia's The Age, Dec. 26.

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"I think that George Michael had to be caught with his trousers down because he's made such a big deal of protecting himself. It was almost like it had to be really unceremonious. It had to be really hideous. It had to be so undignified. And it had to be like he was the victim. I can remember people saying, 'Oh, they set him up.' And I was like 'What are you talking about? He set himself up.' I just think that the whole situation with George in the toilet was really poetic. I definitely believe wherever you are in life is where you're meant to be -- however hideous and however fabulous. I think you definitely are the master of your own destiny."

--Gay singer Boy George to London's Gay Times, November issue.

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"I _never_ take my shirt off in public, ever. Even when I'm slim I never take my shirt off in public. And the day the picture [that ran in the supermarket tabloids The Globe and the National Enquirer] was taken I was a little overweight. One tabloid headline actually said FAT AND GAY."

--Singer George Michael to The Advocate, Jan. 19.

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"This is bullshit. ... It is horribly unfair to say we 'ostracize' you. That's like accusing me of racism or anti-Semitism. It's damn unfair."

--Walter Isaacson, managing editor of Time magazine, in a Dec. 27 letter to activist-writer Larry Kramer after Kramer accused Time of ignoring gays in its year-in-review issue.

-end-

Italics is shown like _this_.

Rex Wockner's "Quote Unquote" is archived at http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/world/wockner.html, which also archives his weekly "International News" and some of his longer gay-press articles.

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