“I think freedom means freedom for everyone. And, as many of you know, one of my daughters is gay, and it’s something that we’ve lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute that governs this, I don’t support. I do believe that historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level – this has always been a state issue – and I think that’s the way it ought to be handled today, that is, on a state-by-state basis. Different states will make different decisions. But I don’t have any problem with that (same-sex marriage). I think people ought to get a shot at that. And they do at present.”

“(Adam) Lambert losing (‘American Idol’) was Christian right revenge re: (Carrie) Prejean and Perez (Hilton).”

“I got alienated from the gay world – when I went through my famous heterosexual phase – because everyone looked the same. To this day, I’ve never got the everyone-looking-the-same thing. ...(T)he clones and the checked shirts and the 501s and the same mustaches, you know. I mean, now you can look back, and it seems sort of endearingly kitsch. It’s Tales of the City, you know – it’s that period. I found that alienating because it seemed professional and narcissistic and just about doing sex really well. And all of that I don’t find very sexy.”

“My (gay) story is relative to the times. Jane (Wagner) and I were out, but we never called a press conference. In those days the press also didn’t write about (our personal lives). And truthfully from my heart, I didn’t encourage them. It was the ’70s. But I don’t know what would have come of it if I had. It could have been great. I mean, Time magazine offered me the cover in 1975 if I came out and Ellen (DeGeneres) came out on the cover 20 years later. She was the right person at the right time.”