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Quote UnQuote

Compiled by Rex Wockner

Published Thursday, 30-Mar-2006 in issue 953

“They’re trying to cloak themselves in normalcy. It’s not normal. The American people overwhelmingly believe it’s not normal.”

Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, on the Family Pride Coalition’s plan to bring hundreds of GLBT parents and their children to the April 17 White House Easter Egg Roll, to the Scripps Howard News Service, March 9.

“I don’t go out that often. I think I went out, met my wife, and that was the last time I had to go out.”

Rocker Melissa Etheridge to Los Angeles’ Lesbian News, March issue.

“For me, Brokeback [Mountain] isn’t rebellious at all. It’s a very ordinary movie. People call it groundbreaking or whatnot. It puts a lot of pressure on me. But I didn’t feel this way when I was making the movie. This is the way gays are. It’s just that they have been distorted. When two people are in love and are scared, that’s the way they are.”

Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee, who won the director Oscar for the film, speaking to Hong Kong television, March 8.

“[Elton John] seems to be angry. I seem to have become a target. It’s not very gentlemanly or gracious. But he did send me a letter apologizing for his last outburst, right before his wedding.”

Madonna to Out magazine, April issue.

“We were so shocked. I mean, we’re still trying to figure out if we got this.”

Crash writer/director Paul Haggis after the film beat heavily favored Brokeback Mountain for the best picture Oscar, as quoted by The Associated Press, March 7.

“We wouldn’t have missed this year for the world. This is the second-best Mardi Gras I’ve been to. The spirit, the attitudes, the blue-tarp theme, the Katrina theme, the FEMA theme, the costumes are more elaborate. The last good one was when Jerry Falwell did the Tinky Winky thing. The street was covered in purple Tinky Winkys. So there’s a theme this year, something to poke fun at. People felt a need to come down and help and just be here. Being here helps.”

Mardi Gras partier Paul Landry of Houston outside a Bourbon Street gay bar in New Orleans, to this column, Feb. 28.

“I will not permit such parades. My philosophy is my negative attitude to these phenomena, as I believe them to be unnatural to the human nature, though I try to be tolerant to whatever develops in human society.”

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov in Berlin Feb. 22 reiterating his promise to ban Moscow’s first Pride parade, which is planned for May, as quoted by Interfax. Luzhkov was speaking at a press conference with the mayors of Paris, London and Berlin. Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit are openly gay.

“I … suspect that at least a few handfuls of Oscar voters backed Crash because they knew that such a vote would allow them to reject gay love yet still look their left-wing faces in the mirror this morning … not a few of them old-time Hollywood ‘liberals’ – for whom the idea of crowning a movie about explicit gay love as the year’s best was simply too beyond-the-pale. They were, whether they admitted it or not, distinctly uncomfortable. In a close race, those kind of ugly sentiments matter.”

Journalist Brendan Lemon at out.com, March 6.