I Didn't Say It ...

Judy Shepard, on a conversation she once had with her son Matthew about Wyoming and marriage equality: 

“I had had a conversation with Matt in 1998 and he asked me if I thought it would ever happen – if marriage equality would come to Wyoming. I thought: In my lifetime? No. But I thought he would see it in his. It turned out to be the complete opposite.”

This breaks my heart. So much promise …

Louis Gohmert, Texas asshat and Republican Congressman, still worried about gays in the military:

"I've had people say, 'Hey, you know, there's nothing wrong with gays in the military. Look at the Greeks.' Well, you know, they did have people come along who they loved that was the same sex and would give them massages before they went into battle. But you know what, it's a different kind of fighting, it's a different kind of war and if you're sitting around getting massages all day ready to go into a big, planned battle, then you're not going to last very long. It's guerrilla fighting. You are going to be ultimately vulnerable to terrorism and if that's what you start doing in the military like the Greeks did. As people have said, 'Louie, you have got to understand, you don't even know your history.' Oh yes I do. I know exactly. It's not a good idea."

I think Louie spends an awful lot of time thinking about man-on-man massages.

That’s all.

Jimmy Carter, former president, on the idea that states should still be allowed to ban same-sex marriage:

"I'm kind of inclined to let the states decide individually. And now as you see more and more states are deciding on gay marriages every year. But if Texas doesn't want to have gay marriage, then I think that's a right for Texas people to decide."

This is quite different than what he’s said in the past, so I hope it’s a misquote or a misstatement.

Jimmy needs to see that if, say, Bob and Carlos get married in South Carolina, and have their marriage recognized in that state, and then, for some reason, they move to Texas somewhere down the line, and find their marriage is invalid, that’s kind of the epitome on inequality.

Eh, Jimmy?

Ted Olson, AFER lawyer, saying the nation has reached a "point of no return" in the legal battle over gay marriage:

"I do not believe that the United States Supreme Court could rule that all of those laws prohibiting marriage are suddenly constitutional after all these individuals have gotten married and their rights have changed; To have that snatched away, it seems to me, would be inhuman; it would be cruel; and it would be inconsistent with what the Supreme Court has said about these issues in the cases that it has rendered."

It’s gonna happen, far sooner than I think most of us ever suspected, or expected.

Dolly Parton, on her gay following, Christianity and the LGBT community:

“They know that I completely love and accept them, as I do all people. I've struggled enough in my life to be appreciated and understood. I've had to go against all kinds of people through the years just to be myself. I think everybody should be allowed to be who they are, and to love who they love. I don't think we should be judgmental. Lord, I've got enough problems of my own to pass judgment on somebody else.  … [As] far as the Christians, if people want to pass judgment, they're already sinning. The sin of judging is just as bad as any other sin they might say somebody else is committing. I try to love everybody.”

I’m glad she didn’t resort to her old standby that gay people deserve marriage so they can be just as miserable as straight people.

I Didn't Say It ...

Ted Olson, who, along with fellow AFER attorney David Boies, represented Timothy Bostic and Tony London in their suit against Virginia, on the SCOTUS announcement:

"It does seem to suggest, if I was a federal judge, I would read today’s decision as saying that the opponents, if they still exist, on the Supreme Court of marriage equality have decided they don’t want to get into this and they sort of feel that the federal judges — one after the other, after the other, after the other — are getting it right and at this point they ought to just leave it alone. We believe, those of us who have been involved in this effort, that the Supreme Court having decided not to overturn or not to even review the decisions of these circuit courts ultimately will grant that same right and that same privilege to people all over the United States. To see the United States Supreme Court recognize in this way the love of these individuals and the happiness that they will soon be able to experience is the highlight of my life.”

It started as a trickle and may end as a landslide.

As it should …

Wade Davis Jr., former profession football player who came out as gay in 2012, on being gay, and his own journey to acceptance: 

"I did not want anyone to think I was gay, I started to perform more hetero norms of masculinity. I would go to strip clubs and when I did go to nightclubs, I made sure I left with a female. I was looking at my identity through the eyes of others. ... When you look at me, Jason Collins or Michael Sam, we show up with a certain type of masculinity that is typically accepted in this country. We can walk into a room and you'll think those guys are probably straight. We must make sure that any person can show up with any level of masculinity and be accepted."

An effeminate man, gay or straight, is still a man; two men in a relationship are still men — I loathe when anyone asks me or Carlos who the woman is in our relationship.

Gay men are men, get used to it.

Yvette Schneider, ex-ex-gay, meaning now she's not not gay, I guess, on the ex-gay movement and its demise:

"I think the ex-gay movement will be dead within the next 10 years. As churches become more gay-affirming, parents and church leaders won’t seek parachurch ministries to 'fix' in gay Christians what isn’t broken. The fact that the ex-gay movement has been a monumental failure with no real, lasting change in those who have sought to negate same-sex attractions and become heterosexual will become more and more apparent to the average lay Christian. This is especially true in the age of social media, when information spreads like wildfire and can’t easily be suppressed. I’m sure there will be pockets of people here and there who will still try to change someone’s orientation. But the movement as a relevant entity in the push for LGBT rights will be defunct."

Good. Haw damaging it is to try and force someone to suppress their true self because their family, or even they themselves, think being gay is wrong.

Raven-Symoné, on how it happened that she didn’t become Lohan:

"What I’ve learned is it’s unnecessary to go to the most popular restaurant in the world when you have a scandal on your head and then get mad that someone’s going to take a picture of you. That’s your fault, boo boo. Stay in the house.” 

Word. And snap.

Frank Bruni, writing in the New York Times, about the glut of folks working in Catholic schools fired for getting all same-sex married:

"Repeatedly over the last year and a half, I’ve written about teachers in Catholic schools and leaders in Catholic parishes who were dismissed from their posts because they were in same-sex relationships and — in many cases — had decided to marry. Every time, more than a few readers weighed in to tell me that these people had it coming. If you join a club, they argued, you play by its rules or you suffer the consequences. Oh really? The rules of this particular club prohibit divorce, yet the pews of many of the Catholic churches I’ve visited are populous with worshipers on their second and even third marriages. They walk merrily to the altar to receive communion, not a peep of protest from a soul around them. They participate fully in the rituals of the church, their membership in the club uncontested. The rules prohibit artificial birth control, and yet most of the Catholic families I know have no more than three children, which is either a miracle of naturally capped fecundity or a sign that someone’s been at the pharmacy."

Once again, he cuts through the muck and madness and shows the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church.