"I love everybody. A lot of women assume that I'm a lesbian, and it's kind of a copout to say I'm bi. I'd rather say I'm sexual. I've had relationships with women and with men. I'm comfortable with my sexuality. I love the person, not the anatomy."

--Patrice Donnelly, who played Tori in the 1982 lesbian film Personal Best, to Los Angeles' Lesbian News, January issue.

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"Anyone who's homophobic is insecure about their own heterosexuality. More than that, I think it's an envy of pleasure."

--Actress Cybill Shepherd to Los Angeles' Lesbian News, January issue.

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"What Ethan [Green] is about and what I'm writing about is that gay ghetto, about being a member of a tribe. I think a lot of us feel that--whether you're in Chelsea or in a gay neighborhood in Kansas City or cruising somewhere in Mexico--there's a commonality. And we gay men like that very, very much."

---Eric Orner, who draws "The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green," to Chicago's Windy City Times, Jan. 1.

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"I used the word 'queer' and I'll use it again. I'm not going to call them gay. I don't approve of their lifestyle one bit."

--Montgomery, Ala., Mayor Emory Folmar to the Montgomery Advertiser last week, defending having called gays 'queer' during an appearance on the TV show Good Morning, Montgomery.

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"I never understood why Diana became a saint. I thought she was trash and got what she deserved."

--Gay author Quentin Crisp, 89, to Australia's Sydney Star Observer, Dec. 18.

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"I consider the life of the homosexual terrible. The persecution doesn't come from without, it comes from within. Does anyone want to take a man's penis into his mouth? It's disgusting, the whole thing -- and that's what you're stuck with. And when you're young and you pretty yourself up and you swan about the West End, you don't think, 'What am I going to have to do at the end of it?' And when you find out, you don't want it."

--Gay author Quentin Crisp, 89, to Australia's Sydney Star Observer, Dec. 18.

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"Look, I'm 40, I'm single, and I work in the musical theater -- you do the math. What do you need, flashcards?"

--Birdcage star Nathan Lane on his sexual orientation to US magazine, February issue.

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"The new movie, Wag The Dog, will answer the question all of Hollywood is supposedly asking: Will audiences accept an actress in a lip lock with a man onscreen if they've seen her in a lip lock with a woman off-screen? Although there are a couple of openly gay character actors in Hollywood, [Anne] Heche will be the first leading lady with an offscreen leading lady [Ellen DeGeneres] of her own."

--US magazine, February issue.

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"I love the gay fans. They're the best fans. I've been around gay people since I entered this business. They are the most energetic, loyal and appreciative audience. As a performer, you are very lucky to have a following like that."

--Singer Celine Dion to Florida's Contax Guide, Jan. 7.

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"Who you have sex with and who you have domesticity with shouldn't necessarily be the same."

--Key Queer Theory writer Eve Sedgwick to The New York Times, Jan. 17. Sedgwick lives with a gay-male friend and sees her husband only on weekends.

"I am the most qualified person ever to host a talk show. I've got five kids by three different men -- kids whose ages range from 26 to 2. I came from a trailer park where I was a Jew passing as a Mormon in Salt Lake City, Utah. My brother and sister are both homosexual -- and my younger sister is anorexic."

--Roseanne in a speech to the annual convention of the National Association of Television Program Executives, Jan. 20 in New Orleans.

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"Surely it's a bit of a comedown after so many years of being a reigning queen."

--Boy George on Elton John's knighthood to London's Express on Sunday.

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"I don't know who is more ridiculous when all is said and done: The occasional circuit boy who thinks the world revolves around him and his parties -- or circuit-party critics who think the gay world revolves around the circuit boys."

--Jeff Epperly, editor of Boston's Bay Windows, in a Jan. 22 editorial.

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"As for entrapment operations [using undercover 'pretty policemen' in toilets and male cruising areas], they achieve nothing, they are counter-productive and they waste a lot of time and money, and get us absolutely nowhere. There is no place for such operations, and I don't foresee them being used any more in this country."

--Anne Summers, spokeswoman for Britain's Association of Chief Police Officers, to London's Pink Paper, Jan. 9.

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"When did careers and stardom become more important than being in love with someone? Excuse me, but I get to go home, and dance around my house holding hands every night, sitting in front of a fire, and having a good meal. That's what I get, and I think I'd rather have that than another job. I can work in Dairy Queen, you know."

--Actress Anne Heche, Ellen DeGeneres' lover, to the Boston Globe, Jan. 4.

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"Here's the formula. You tell the truth, you always say what you want and what you feel, and you will live in bliss. Don't hide, don't lie, don't manipulate, and you'll get blessed. I've always said that, then people told me that my formula would be different if I was in love with a woman. I fell in love with a woman. That was the truth for me. And somebody said, 'No, no, this formula isn't going to work anymore. You have to start hiding because the world isn't ready for this.' And I said, 'But that'll really mess up my formula because my formula has always equaled bliss, and I don't know if I want to fuck with my formula. So I won't.' And the second I didn't, I got more blessings. Now people think we represent a love they've always wanted to see represented. Whoa! Hell, once you start hiding, well, that's a path I didn't want to go down. I've seen people go down that path, and they may have their careers, but Jesus, can they look in the mirror in the morning?"

--Actress Anne Heche, Ellen DeGeneres' lover, to the Boston Globe, Jan. 4.

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"Just come out and say it. Comedy queen Ellen needs to make an overdue wardrobe change, and throw those baggy fashion bombs back in the closet."

--Fashion maven Mr. Blackwell, placing Ellen DeGeneres second (after The Spice Girls) on his Worst Dressed Women List, Jan. 13.

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"Fulfilling their own need for victim status, members of Sex Panic imagine themselves under assault for being gay and view thoughtless unsafe sex -- complete with HIV infection -- as the ultimate liberation. Their callous selfishness has the potential to guide another generation of young gay men toward potentially deadly choices. It is time for the gay community to enunciate our values, such as individual responsibility. Let's stop blaming oppressive forces and take control of our lives to ensure we don't witness a second, more devastating generation of this plague."

--Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director Rich Tafel, in a Jan. 8 press release. Sex Panic! is a group of activists and academics fighting against, among other things, crackdowns on gay cruising spaces by police and politicians. The group also is engaged in a war of words with gay authors Michelangelo Signorile, Gabriel Rotello, Larry Kramer and Andrew Sullivan, primarily over the issue of promiscuity.

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"I don't mind being thirty-five ... even though in respect to the organized gay community, I'm entering the twilight years. That is unless I become involved in the leather or bear subcultures, which themselves are reactions to the youth and body fetishes of the larger community. Why anyone would choose to leap from one set of narrow ideas about ways of looking, lusting and living to another remains a mystery to me, however."

--www.cruisingforsex.com columnist John Fall, Jan. 13.

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"The Bible says that those who practice such things as homosexuality and bestiality are gonna cause the land to vomit them out. And ladies and gentlemen, with all the sincerity in my heart, I cannot understand how a group that claims only one percent of the population -- that's the homosexual, the sodomite, excuse me, that's the lesbians, and two percent are the so-called homosexuals, the sodomites -- how they can get control of the federal government and use billions of taxpayer dollars to educate our children in this bizarre, anti-God lifestyle. And I want to say very sincerely, right now, that if the United States of America officially embraces sodomy, we will have done to us the exact same thing that was done to Sodom and Gomorrah. It's just a question of when. All the pretty lifestyle we have, all the money, and all the riches and all the nice homes will be taken away from us. Everything we have and enjoy will be stripped away from us if we as a nation embraces this. Now if that's what you want, if you want to lose everything you have and your family has, well, just keep on doing it. But if you don't, then I suggest you turn back to what God says and please him rather than offend him. We've already offended him with the Supreme Court. We've already offended him with 35 million unborn babies aborted. And now we're offending him with this thing he calls an abomination. Now if that's what we want -- if we want to destroy America, our freedoms, and all of our money and the wealth we have in this country, we'll keep right on at it. No problem. We'll hasten the coming of the Lord, and that's the way it is."

--Pat Robertson on TV's 700 Club, Dec. 16.

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"The Minister of Tourism of the Cayman Islands, a man named Thomas Jefferson (of all things), announced that gay people could not be expected to comport themselves according to the standards of the Caymans, and therefore denied permission to the cruiseship company to dock in the chief port of those islands. We were immediately reminded of the shipload of German Jews who were denied permission to land in the United States in 1939, and denied permission to land elsewhere, and had to turn back to Nazi Germany, where all of them ultimately perished. And while some of our readers may not think this to be an appropriate analogy, we think it is. We believe the Caymans' decision presents a human rights issue, and one on which people of good will need to take a firm and public stand. ... To deny the rights of travel to people because of their sexual orientation is a vile piece of discrimination. ... None of us should vacation in the Cayman Islands unless all our fellow citizens are permitted to vacation in the Cayman Islands."

-- Arthur Frommer's Daily Newsletter, Jan. 23.

Rex Wockner's "Quote Unquote" is archived from mid-1994 onward at http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/world/wockner.html