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Andrew Sullivan

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Quote UnQuote

Compiled by Rex Wockner

Published Thursday, 06-May-2004 in issue 854

“It is time to bring to an end, once and for all, the intolerable discrimination still suffered by many Spaniards exclusively by virtue of their sexual preferences. Homosexuals and transsexuals deserve the same public consideration as heterosexuals and have the right to live freely the life that they themselves have chosen. We will recognize, on an equal basis, their right to marriage, with the consequent effects on labor rights, inheritance and social security protection.”

— New Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, April 15

“Gays and lesbians have experienced a dramatic rise in acceptance over the last two decades, according to a new Los Angeles Times poll. Almost seven in 10 Americans know someone who is gay or lesbian and say they would not be troubled if their elementary school-age child had a homosexual teacher. Six in 10 say they are sympathetic to the gay community, displaying an increasing inclination to view same-sex issues through a prism of societal accommodation rather than moral condemnation. On questions ranging from job discrimination to adoption to whether homosexuality is morally wrong, responses indicate that as gays and lesbians have become more open, heterosexuals in return have become more open toward them. The change has come within one generation.”

— The Los Angeles Times, April 11

“The train is out of the station and we don’t think we can get it back in.”

— Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s chief political advisor, in a written response to bisexual former U.S. Rep. Michael Huffington, R-Calif., after Huffington wrote Rove asking him to abandon the idea of amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, according to the Los Angeles Times, April 17

“The AIDS activists of yore have gone corporate and been largely co-opted by bloated AIDS organization that are now so dependent on funding from the government and large pharmaceutical companies that they have lost their critical voice.”

— Washington Blade Executive Editor Chris Crain in an April 9 editorial

“Ted’s the guy in the cubicle next to people who say they don’t know any gay people.”

— “Queer As Folk” actor Scott Lowell in reference to his QAF character, to the Houston Voice, April 16

“BEAR WATCH: Jesse Ventura just got even sexier with that beard. If that were possible.”

— Gay journalist Andrew Sullivan writing on his blog, andrewsullivan.com, April 16

“It’s hard to believe in the year 2004, with Americans being killed in Iraq, with civilians killed in Madrid, that these despicable assholes would conjure up the sanctity-of-marriage blather. This is a nonissue promulgated by thieves and religious zealots to imprison contemporary people in the prison of the medieval mind. They should just call it the Mel Gibson amendment.”

— Singer Lou Reed denouncing the proposed U.S. constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, to The Advocate, April 27