I Didn't Say It ...

Laverne Cox, on her rather historic year:

“So much of the year I’ve had is historic, but this is a moment that is bigger than me. I meet people who say that my role has given them the courage to say, ‘This is who I am’ and ‘I can transition and be successful and to be out as a trans person. … We have this internal compass of the truth inside of us. And that is our job, really, to quiet all this noise around us and listen to that.”

It’s that inner voice that guides you, but, as Laverne says, sometimes the outside noises drown it out.

Bernie Sanders, Democratic Senator from Vermont, on making Election Day a national holiday:

"Election Day should be a national holiday so that everyone has the time and opportunity to vote. While this would not be a cure-all, it would indicate a national commitment to create a more vibrant democracy. We should not be satisfied with a ‘democracy’ in which more than 60 percent of our people don't vote and some 80 percent of young people and low-income Americans fail to vote. We can and must do better than that."

Gee, how I wonder how the GOP feels about having more people vote?

Uh huh.

Anthony Mundine, Australian aboriginal boxer, on his thoughts about gay being a choice:

“I told you I speak the truth, I got nothing against homosexuality, if you’re gay, be gay, that’s your choice, that’s your right in this day and age. But don’t exploit it on prime time when there’s kids watching and having sons come towards you and going ‘dad is that alright, for a man to kiss a man?”

He has nothing against The Gays; he just doesn’t want to see us anywhere, especially on the TV.

Mundine goes on to say that he has a lot of homosexual friends though I find that hard to believe.

Rand Paul, Teabagging wingnut, on Hillary Clinton running for President:

"I think all the polls show if she does run, she’ll win the Democrat nomination. But I don’t think it’s for certain. It’s a very taxing undertaking to go through. It’s a rigorous physical ordeal, I think, to be able to campaign for the presidency."

Really, Rand? At least she doesn’t wear some kind of muskrat on her head and call it hair. At least she has more than two brain cells to rub together.

Even Rand’s own people — i.e. Fox News — denounced his attack on Clinton's age.

Jon Stewart, on Fox News:

"I think that Roger Ailers’ [sic] great gift was mainstreaming that nativist, paranoid streak in American politics and putting it on television in a much prettier, shinier box. What they did was change the inflection point. AM talk radio is, ‘We are being robbed by communists and progressives that are destroying this country. They are a cancer and treasonous!’ Fox News does it like, [sweet, cheery voice] ‘Are we being run by communists? Is it treason what they’re doing? Let’s have the discussion.’”

Funny that it takes a comic to point out the lack of newsworthiness of Fox.

Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Center hate group, on Apple CEO Tim Cook coming out as gay:

"When companies get involved in cultural battles, every consumer is forced to take part. As conservatives we aren’t looking for businesses to take our side - we just want them to be neutral. Of course, Tim Cook has the right to express his views but consumers have rights too, including the right to respond. As Christians we’re called to be good stewards of god’s money...and apps like 2nd Vote and Faith-Driven Consumer help shoppers do exactly that. Let’s face it, money talks and corporate America is listening.”

God’s money? GOD’S money? I didn’t see Her down at my job punching the time clock!

I Didn't Say It ...

Lindsey Graham, South Carolina senator, clutching his pearls and fear-mongering about ISIS:

"The first thing I want to tell American people, from my point of view, it is our fight, it is not just their fight. I will not let this president suggest to the American people we can outsource or security and this is not about our safety. There is no way in hell you can form an army on the ground to go into Syria, to destroy ISIL, without a substantial American component. To destroy ISIL, you have to kill or capture their leaders, take the territory they hold back, cut off the financing, and destroy the capability to regenerate. This is a war we’re fighting, not a counter-terrorism operation. This is not Somalia, this is not Yemen. This is a turning point in the war on terror. Our strategy will fail yet again. This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home."

Someone needs to tell her to calm the eff down. 

Oh, and to remind her that she was saying the exact opposite thing just a couple of months ago. 

Lindsey in flip-flopping in sequined footwear.

Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, responding to Graham’s pronouncement:

“The poor man lives his entire life trapped in ‘The Blair Witch Project.’ For God’s sakes, I’ve seen Chihuahuas in handbags who are less fretful and shaking.”

Snap.

Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association, offering proof that we are a Christian nation:

"You want one single item of proof that America is a Christian nation and not a Jewish nation and not an Islamic nation? One single bit of proof is all you need: we freely allow restaurants and grocery stores to sell and to serve bacon. That can only happen in a Christian country. So the sheer fact that we freely allow the sale and consumption of bacon is absolute proof that we are, in fact, a Christian nation."

Hmmm, or it could mean we’re an atheist or agnostic nation, but Fischer won’t ever say that.

But seriously folks, this man has said some of the most ridiculous, inane, moronic, stupid, asshatted things on his little Hate Show, but this one … mother%king bacon … is the most loony tunes thing ever!

Jon Hamm, on social media: 

“This constant recording of your life and updating of your ‘status’ . . . I don’t do that. No event ‘happened’ unless you took a picture of it. Going to a concert or a ballgame, are actual things. But you’re not watching because you’re busy trying to record it so you can tell your friends about it and put it on YouTube. It’s totally meaningless.”

How much fun can you be having when you’re taking a selfie just to show you were “there?”

Howsabout being present? Howsabout acknowledging those around you? Howsabout a few less pictures of what you ate? Where you sat? Or your giant forehead in a selfie?

Dan Savage, on that Tennessee billboard:

"When we bring up God's holy ban on eating shellfish or His loving command to kill your daughter if she isn't a virgin on her wedding night—passages in the Bible that Christians ignore—we're told that those passages are in the Old Testament, silly, so they neither apply nor matter to Christians because Jesus. Leviticus 18:22 goes on to say that men who lie with men as with women should be put to death. (Can't you just feel the love for people, people?) But if someone else were to put up a billboard in Portland proclaiming that all women who aren't virgins on their wedding nights should be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)—or that adulterers like Mark Sanford and David Vitter must be put to death (Leviticus 10:10) or that women should be forced to marry their rapists (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). Basically: It's fair game for them to use the Old Testament to beat up queers, but it's not fair for queers to use that same Old Testament to highlight their hypocrisy.”

As usual, I have nothing to add. Dan’s said it all and really quite nicely.

Sean Hannity, Fox New host, making an incredible leap by saying that arresting NFL star Adrian Peterson for brutally whipping his four year-old son is a slippery slope to banning parents from telling children they shouldn't be gay:

"You guys want to tell parents what they can and cannot do. For example, is it gonna become illegal if a parent teaches kids the politically incorrect view that being gay is not normal? Or that the parent says — whatever the parent wants to teach the kid that you would disagree with? I think we’ve gotten to the point where, if we don’t politically correct our kids, we might as well hand our kids over to the government the day that they’re born and let them raise them."

Let me make this queer for you, Hannity.

For some people, myself included, being gay is perfectly normal, hence being gay is normal, for gay people. Being straight, for me, is not normal; now that doesn’t make being straight abnormal, it just makes it not normal for me, or any number of other gay folks out there.

And when parents talk to their children about what it means to be gay it could be as simple, as normal as this: Some men love women, some men love men. It’s all love, so it’s all normal.

The more difficult explanation would be talking to your kids about why Fox News calls itself a news organization

Now, take a seat.

I Didn't Say It ...

President Barack Obama, at a Democratic National Committee LGBT fundraiser:

"Pride month is a time for celebration, and this year we've got a lot to celebrate. If you think about everything that's happened in the last twelve months, it is remarkable. In nine more states you're now free to marry the person you love--The NFL drafted its first openly gay player. The US Postal Service made history by putting an openly gay person on a stamp--the late great Harvey Milk smiling from ear-to-ear. But what's been remarkable is the way Americans are increasingly embracing marriage equality. They understand love is love. And for many people whose minds have changed, it was love that did it--love for a child or a grandchild, or the friend or the co-worker who sat down one day and held their hands and took a deep breath and said, 'I'm gay.' And that's why I'm here tonight, to say Thank You for helping make America more just and more compassionate."

Nicely said, Mr. President.

But there’s still work to be done.

Jon Stewart, of the Daily Show, on the Texas GOP’s gay reparative therapy plank in their platform:

"Being gay is not a choice. But being a Texas Republican is. So my advice is the next time you feel the urge to be a Texas Republican — to replace science textbooks with pictures of humans riding dinosaurs or ban same sex marriage, or put on [a stuffed elephant] hat — sh*t in a jar and sniff it! It won't cure you but do it anyway. Hopefully it will remind you of what a**holes you're being."

Snap!

Kanye West, on why he married the Kardastrophe:

“Because she is the number one woman in the world.  I can’t be with any girl but Kim because that’s the girl I look at her pictures the most, I get turned on the most.”

So, then I guess the minute she falls to #2 he’s out the door and moving back in with Riccardo Tisci?

John MacArthur, “pastor” and radio host, to parents of children who come out as gay:

“If they profess to be a Christian, you have to alienate them. You have to separate them. You can’t condone that. It’s inconsistent with Christ. So you isolate them, you don’t have a meal with them, you separate yourself from them. You turn them over to Satan as it were as scripture says”

And that’s Christian love, y’all. Shun your children.

Joe Kernan, CNBC Squawk Box host, on Texas Governor Rick Perry’s assertion that being gay is like being an alcoholic:

"In terms of comparing it to alcoholism, that's what got all the play, and I don't — I have a really high bar for what I would take offense to, but that would exceed the bar for me on being an offensive comment. I don't think gay marriage leads to cirrhosis of the liver or domestic violence or DWIs. I don't see how that's similar. … But in terms of changing the behavior of someone ... you wouldn’t think that someone who’s heterosexual, that you couldn’t change them into a homosexual, or someone who is homosexual, you don’t think that there should be therapy to try to change them into a heterosexual?"

Kernan has a rational brain. Rick Perry, who is an alcoholic and might be gay, does not.

Rob Portman, Republican Senator from Ohio, saying he’ll never run for higher office because of his pro-marriage equality stance:

"It puts me at odds with my party in many respects. I believe it’s a conservative position...I never really thought deeply about it [before my son came to me]. It seems to me to the extent that it’s not a choice, which is what believe. That is, Republicans ought to treat people as they are...It probably makes it difficult for me to win the primary election at a national election.”

So, this man will not run for office because his beliefs won’t get him elected.

Maybe he should try and find his backbone because maybe, just maybe, he could help the GOP come to their senses regarding LGBT rights.