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When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one. --Epitaph of Leonard P. Matlovich, 1988 (Thanks, Marlene)

If gay and lesbian people are given civil rights, then everyone will want them! --Author unknown, as seen on a button at evolvefish.com

The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals.  That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals.  It's just that they need more supervision. --Lynn Lavner

My lesbianism is an act of Christian charity.  All those women out there praying for a man, and I'm giving them my share. --Rita Mae Brown

You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight. --Barry Goldwater

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? --Ernest Gaines

It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses. --Daphne Fielding, The Duchess of Jermyn Street

Homosexuality is god's way of insuring that the truly gifted aren't burdened with children. --Sam Austin

Isn't it a violation of the Georgia sodomy law for the Supreme Court to have its head up its ass? --Letter to Playboy magazine, February 1987

Who would give a law to lovers?  Love is unto itself a higher law. --Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, A.D. 524

If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work:  "Hello.  Can't work today, still queer." --Robin Tyler

You know what they say:  You can't teach a gay dog straight tricks. --Trey Parker & Matt Stone, South Park

No government has the right to tell its citizens when or whom to love.  The only queer people are those who don't love anybody. --Rita Mae Brown, speech, 28 August 1982

You could move. --Abigail Van Buren, "Dear Abby," in response to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood

War.  Rape.  Murder.  Poverty.  Equal rights for gays.  Guess which one the Southern Baptist Convention is protesting? --The Value of Families

If time and space are curved, where do all of the straight people come from? --Author Unknown

Everybody's journey is individual.  If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy.  The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality. --James Baldwin

What is straight?  A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains. --Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1947

There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex.  People should be very free with sex, they should draw the line at goats. --Elton John

I'd rather be black than gay because when you're black you don't have to tell your mother. --Charles Pierce, 1980

That word "lesbian" sounds like a disease.  And straight men know because they're sure that they're the cure. --Denise McCanles

As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children. --Anita Bryant, 1977

If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nailbiters. --Anita Bryant

Anita Bryant like Anita hole in the head. --Graffiti

The radical right is so homophobic that they're blaming global warming on the AIDS quilt. --Dennis Miller

Jesse Helms and Newt Gingrich were shaking hands congratulating themselves on the introduction of an antigay bill in Congress.  If it passes, they won't be able to shake hands, because it will then be illegal for a prick to touch an asshole. --Judy Carter

My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror. --W. Somerset Maugham

Drag is when a man wears everything a lesbian won't. --Author Unknown
Did you hear about the Scottish drag queen?  He wore pants. --Lynn Lavner

I'm a supporter of gay rights.  And not a closet supporter either.  From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community.  There are so many qualities that make up a human being... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant. --Paul Newman

From various bumper stickers:  My sexual orientation?  Horizontal, usually. --  I can't even think straight. --  Let's get one thing straight, I'm not. --  Straight But Not Narrow --  Closets are for clothes. --  I'm not a lesbian but my girlfriend is. --  I'm not gay but my boyfriend is. --  Equal rights are not special rights. --  Homophobia is a social disease.

I am reminded of a colleague who reiterated "all my homosexual patients are quite sick" - to which I finally replied "so are all my heterosexual patients." --Ernest van den Haag, psychotherapist

For a long time I thought I wanted to be a nun.  Then I realized that what I really wanted to be was a lesbian. --Mabel Maney

When it comes to exploring the sea of love, I prefer buoys. --Andrew G. Dehel

What's the point of being a lesbian if a woman is going to look and act like an imitation man? --Rita Mae Brown

The degree and kind of a man's sexuality reach up into the ultimate pinnacle of his spirit. --Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886

Why can't they have gay people in the army?  Personally, I think they are just afraid of a thousand guys with M16s going, "Who'd you call a faggot?" --John Stewart

If male homosexuals are called "gay," then female homosexuals should be called "ecstatic." --Shelly Roberts

My mother took me to a psychiatrist when I was fifteen because she thought I was a latent homosexual.  There was nothing latent about it. --Amanda Bearse

Some women can't say the word lesbian... even when their mouth is full of one. --Kate Clinton

One should no more deplore homosexuality than left-handedness. --Towards a Quaker View of Sex, 1964

I think God is a callous bitch not making me a lesbian.  I'm deeply disappointed by my sexual interest in men. --Diamanda Galas

The one bonus of not lifting the ban on gays in the military is that the next time the government mandates a draft we can all declare homosexuality instead of running off to Canada. --Lorne Bloch

Soldiers who are not afraid of guns, bombs, capture, torture or death say they are afraid of homosexuals.  Clearly we should not be used as soldiers; we should be used as weapons. --Letter to the editor, The Advocate

No matter how far in or out of the closet you are, you still have a next step. --Author Unknown

People who can't think of anything else but whether the person you love is indented or convex should be doomed not to think of anything else but that, and so miss the other ninety-five percent of life. --Robert Towne

It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality.  It's like disapproving of rain. --Francis Maude

You are digging for the answers until your fingers bleed, to satisfy the hunger, to satiate the need.... And as you pray in your darkness for wings to set you free, you are bound to your silent legacy. --Melissa Etheridge, "Silent Legacy," Yes I Am, 1993

To hear two American men congratulating each other on being heterosexual is one of the most chilling experiences - and unique to the United States.  You don't hear two Italians sitting around complimenting each other because they actually like to go to bed with women.  The American is hysterical about his manhood. --Gore Vidal

There's this illusion that homosexuals have sex and heterosexuals fall in love.  That's completely untrue.  Everybody wants to be loved. --Boy George

Straight Americans need... an education of the heart and soul.  They must understand - to begin with - how it can feel to spend years denying your own deepest truths, to sit silently through classes, meals, and church services while people you love toss off remarks that brutalize your soul. --Bruce Bawer, The Advocate, 28 April 1998

What are you trying to protect heterosexual marriages from?  There isn't a limited amount of love in Iowa.  It isn't a non-renewable resource.  If Amy and Barbara or Mike and Steve love each other, it doesn't mean that John and Mary can't. --Ed Fallon

People sometimes think I'm gay because I once played a gay in a movie.  It's funny.  Audiences don't think you're a murderer if you play a murderer, but they do think you're gay if you play a gay. --Perry King

It's hard enough to be taken seriously in the struggle for gay rights without having a bunch of straight girls running around kissing each other to get the attention of boys and videocameras. --M. Robin D'Antan, 2002

Let my lusts be my ruin, then, since all else is a fake and a mockery. --Hart Crane

I get sick of listening to straight people complain about, "Well, hey, we don't have a heterosexual-pride day, why do you need a gay-pride day?"  I remember when I was a kid I'd always ask my mom:  "Why don't we have a Kid's Day?  We have a Mother's Day and a Father's Day, but why don't we have a Kid's Day?"  My mom would always say, "Every day is Kid's Day."  To all those heterosexuals that bitch about gay pride, I say the same thing:  Every day is heterosexual-pride day!  Can't you people enjoy your banquet and not piss on those of us enjoying our crumbs over here in the corner? --Rob Nash

Wouldn't it be great if you could only get AIDS from giving money to television preachers? --Elayne Boosler

In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality:  the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation. --Simone de Beauvoir

Trust a nitwit society like this one to think that there are only two categories - fag and straight. --Gore Vidal

Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night. --Woody Allen

The world is not divided into sheeps and goats.  Not all things are black nor all things white.  It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories.  Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes.  The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.  The sooner we learn this concerning sexual behavior the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex. --Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, 1948

Labels are for filing.  Labels are for clothing.  Labels are not for people. --Martina Navratilova

Labels?  Okay, fine.  I'm bisensual.  Heteroflexible.  And life-curious.  That about covers it. --Morgan Torva

The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself. --Gore Vidal

Pronouns make it hard to keep our sexual orientation a secret when our co-workers ask us about our weekend.  "I had a great time with... them."  Great!  Now they don't think you're queer - just a big slut! --Judy Carter

I can't help looking gay.  I put on a dress and people say, "Who's the dyke in the dress?" --Karen Ripley

The geography of my heart has hills of desire and valleys and meadows of love - for both men and women - a single day's trek passes through it all. --Agavé Powers

It's a public service when a gay chick goes lipstick instead of lumberjack. --Two and a Half Men, "Alan Harper, Frontier Chiropractor," teleplay by Lee Aronsohn and Mark Roberts, original airdate 15 December 2003, spoken by the character Charlie Harper

My cousin is an agoraphobic homosexual, which makes it kind of hard for him to come out of the closet. --Bill Kelly

As long as society is anti-gay, then it will seem like being gay is anti-social. --Joseph Francis

My mom blames California for me being a lesbian.  "Everything was fine until you moved out there."  "That's right, Mom, we have mandatory lesbianism in West Hollywood.  The Gay Patrol busted me, and I was given seven business days to add a significant amount of flannel to my wardrobe. --Coley Sohn

We love men.  We just don't want to see them naked. --Two Nice Girls

The next time someone asks you, "Hey, howdja get to be a homosexual anyway?" tell them, "Homosexuals are chosen first on talent, then interview... then the swimsuit and evening gown competition pretty much gets rid of the rest of them." --Karen Williams

If Michelangelo had been straight, the Sistine Chapel would have been wallpapered. --Robin Tyler

If you removed all of the homosexuals and homosexual influence from what is generally regarded as American culture, you would pretty much be left with "Let's Make a Deal." --Fran Lebowitz

Girls who put out are tramps.  Girls who don't are ladies.  This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word.  Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn't put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady.  What you have probably found is a Lesbian. --Fran Lebowitz

About a year ago I was a guest on a network news show in New York.  They were showing film clips from a gay pride parade down Fifth Avenue, but they only decided to show the part with men in dresses and heels.  I had seen the parade, and there were men in business suits as well.  After showing the film, the newsperson made some comments, and I found the comments extremely offensive.  "This is what's wrong with the media," I said.  "You show a fringe position.  You show one point of view.  You're closing the minds of the people by not showing them what the reality is."  I got up and walked out, and I've never been asked back again. --Kathleen Nolan

My urges to write poetry are lesbian, but whatever compels me to prose is straight. --Agavé Powers

If adjustment is necessary, it should be made primarily with regard to the position the homosexual occupies in present-day society, and society should more often be treated than the homosexual. --Harry Benjamin

Lesbianism has always seemed to me an extremely inventive response to a shortage of men, but otherwise not worth the trouble. --Nora Ephron, Heartburn, 1983

If horse racing is the sport of kings, then drag racing must be the sport of queens. --Bert R. Sugar

In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast.  Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis. --Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant, 1978

The diagnosis of homosexuality as a "disorder" is a contributing factor to the pathology of those homosexuals who do become mentally ill.... Nothing is more likely to make you sick than being constantly told that you are sick. --Ronald Gold

Homosexuality is a sickness, just as are baby-rape or wanting to become head of General Motors. --Eldridge Cleaver, "Notes on a Native Son," Soul on Ice, 1968

The Reagan Administration has fostered a climate in which a barest majority of the Supreme Court caters to the passions and hatreds of the American mob, stripping away the constitutional shield outside our bedrooms.... How tragically ironic that an Administration that promised to get Government "off our backs" is now so active in draping Government gumshoes over every part of our anatomies. --Carl T. Rowan

      An engineering professor is treating her husband, a loan officer, to dinner for finally giving in to her pleas to shave off the scraggly beard he grew on vacation.  His favorite restaurant is a casual place where they both feel comfortable in slacks and cotton/polyester-blend golf shirts.  But, as always, she wears the gold and pearl pendant he gave her the day her divorce decree was final.  They're laughing over their menus because they know he always ends up diving into a giant plate of ribs but she won't be talked into anything more fattening than shrimp.
      Quiz:  How many biblical prohibitions are they violating?  Well, wives are supposed to be 'submissive' to their husbands (I Peter 3:1).  And all women are forbidden to teach men (I Timothy 2:12), wear gold or pearls (I Timothy 2:9) or dress in clothing that 'pertains to a man' (Deuteronomy 22:5).  Shellfish and pork are definitely out (Leviticus 11:7, 10) as are usury (Deuteronomy 23:19), shaving (Leviticus 19:27) and clothes of more than one fabric (Leviticus 19:19).  And since the Bible rarely recognizes divorce, they're committing adultery, which carries the rather harsh penalty of death by stoning (Deuteronomy 22:22).
      So why are they having such a good time?  Probably because they wouldn't think of worrying about rules that seem absurd, anachronistic or - at best - unrealistic.  Yet this same modern-day couple could easily be among the millions of Americans who never hesitate to lean on the Bible to justify their own anti-gay attitudes. --Deb Price, And Say Hi To Joyce

The Lord is my Shepherd and he knows I'm gay. --Troy Perry

- My mother made me a homosexual.
- If I gave her the wool, would she make me one too?
--Graffiti, London, 1978

I like my beers cold and my homosexuals flaming. --Homer Simpson, from the television show The Simpsons

While many minority groups are the target for prejudice... and discrimination... in our society, few persons face this hostility without the support and acceptance of their family as do many gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth. --Virginia Uribe and Karen Harbeck

Mothers, tell your children: be quick, you must be strong.  Life is full of wonder, love is never wrong.  Remember how they taught you, how much of it was fear.  Refuse to hand it down - the legacy stops here. --Melissa Etheridge, "Silent Legacy," Yes I Am, 1993

Bisexuality is a blessing and a curse, but viewing it as a schizophrenia will make you insane.... I am not a whole person with split desires: I am a whole person with desire.  As everyone is, regardless. --Agavé Powers

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. --Anaïs Nin

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another. --William Shakespeare

Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. --Homer

Never be bullied into silence.  Never allow yourself to be made a victim.  Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself. --Harvey Fierstein

There is just one life for each of us:  our own. --Euripides

Never apologize for showing feeling.  When you do so, you apologize for the truth. --Benjamin Disraeli

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. --Johann von Goethe

Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness. --Shakti Gawain

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. --Anne Morrow Lindbergh

If you are ashamed to stand by your colors, you had better seek another flag. --Author Unknown

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. --Dr. Seuss

Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do. --Eric Hoffer

Is life not a hundred times too short for us to stifle ourselves. --Friedrich Nietzsche

The white light streams down to be broken up by those human prisms into all the colors of the rainbow.  Take your own color in the pattern and be just that. --Charles R. Brown

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere. --Agnes Repplier

Resolve to be thyself; and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery. --Matthew Arnold, "Self-Dependence," Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems, 1852

There's a period of life when we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside. --Pearl Bailey

It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy. --Lucille Ball

For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to get themselves filed. --Clifton Fadiman

You'll never find peace of mind until you listen to your heart. --George Michael, "Kissing A Fool"

To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying "Amen" to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive. --Robert Louis Stevenson

Do not follow where the path may lead.  Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.  If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened.  But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. --Friedrich Nietzsche

My theory is that the hardest work anyone does in life is to appear normal. --From the movie Ed TV

The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity:  monotheism, monarchy, monogamy and, in our age, monomedicine.  The belief that there is only one right way to live, only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to man:  members of his own species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, and sanity. --Thomas Szasz