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Michelle Obama

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Quote UnQuote

Compiled by Rex Wockner

Published Thursday, 28-Feb-2008 in issue 1053

“Part of me is titillated by the fact that I’m gay. I remember when being gay was all very cryptic. You’d sneak into the back door and down the stairs and back around and then you’re suddenly in some magical world called gay culture. It was very exciting and very underworld. I actually kind of miss those days.”

Singer k.d. lang to the Toronto gay newspaper Xtra!, Feb. 1.

“Yes, yeah, I would consider Oprah a friend – Oprah and Gayle, both are just terrific women.”

Michelle Obama, wife of presidential candidate Barack Obama, on CNN’s ‘Larry King Live,’ Feb. 11.

“[In] the late ’70s and ’80s, I had gay boyfriends. I had sexual relationships with guys who had never been with a woman, and have never been with a woman since. See, in those times you didn’t have to define yourself. People weren’t demanding constantly that you ay what your label was, so it didn’t seem like such a big deal, and it wasn’t so shocking.”

Actress Susan Sarandon to PlanetOut.com, Feb. 13.

“The reason I have always supported the entire gay community is because they have kept her name iconic. They have been supportive, but what was really interesting, if you went to see my mother’s concerts when she was performing, the audience wasn’t a gay audience. It was really after she passed away and what happened at Stonewall, that’s when the gay community took her as their own.”

Lorna Luft, Judy Garland’s daughter, to London’s Pink Paper, Jan. 24.

“It’s so important for gay people to come out. It’s the young people I’ve always been so concerned about. When a young person has to hide, then you start having a very strange life. Then you start sneaking around, going to weird places and then you’re not safe and you’re embarrassed and not feeling good about yourself and you can’t have a healthy, safe relationship. It becomes sort of underground and perverse, and it’s just no good! It’s so important to me to have people be themselves, and it’s so important to have more talk about it and have it out in the open.”

Actress Bernadette Peters to the Palm Springs gay magazine The BottomLine, Feb. 1.

“Trapped in an archaic black–and–white newsreel, the G.O.P. looks more like a nostalgic relic than a national political party in contemporary America. A cultural sea change has passed it by. The 2008 primary campaign has been so fast and furious that we haven’t paused to register just how spectacular that change is. All the fretful debate about whether voters would turn out for a candidate who is a black or a woman seems a century ago. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama vanquished the Democratic field, including a presidential-looking Southern white man with an enthusiastic following, John Edwards. What was only months ago an exotic political experiment is now almost ho-hum.”

Columnist Frank Rich, The New York Times, Feb 17.

“Well, it wasn’t that I wasn’t a big fan. I hadn’t seen the play. I live in Georgia, OK? I was asked to do a monologue called ‘Cunt.’ And I said, ‘I don’t think so, I got enough problems.’”

Jane Fonda discussing her starring role in the play The Vagina Monologues, on NBC’s ‘Today’ show, Feb. 14.