Quoteline

by Rex Wockner and Tracy Baim

"I declare you queen of the realm." ­ Outgoing San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Barbara Kaufman presenting a tiara and feathered scepter to incoming President Tom Ammiano, who is gay, at Ammiano´s Jan. 8 installation.

"We´re not in Kansas any more." ­ Ammiano´s response (see above).

"Gosh darn it, just be the best darn homosexual you can be then." ­ Horizons Community Services ad campaign appearing on public­ transit vehicles and elsewhere around Chicago.

"You´re a great big wonderful lesbian, you great big wonderful lesbian you." ­ Horizons Community Services ad campaign .

"[Boy George has] never said anything that really bothered me until his Advocate article this year. He´s always said horrible things, but in that article he said I thought I was too good for the gay community. I felt like that was really over the top. He did an article directly after I was arrested­interestingly enough, he writes a column for one of the tabloids, which is exactly where I think he belongs. It´s an English tabloid called Daily Mail. It´s also pretty right­ wing and homophobic. I think it´s quite interesting that he writes for them, so I guess he´ll go for anyone who pays him. ... Am I too good for the gay community? No. Am I too good for the likes of Boy George? Yes." ­ Singer George Michael to The Advocate, Jan. 19.

"Straight men don´t find it easy to get quick casual sex with attractive women without paying for it. They normally have to do a lot of groundwork. They are different hunts, but they are still hunts. I´ve been there with my mates in clubs when we were younger, cruising for women. I know all the stupid games you have to play. I also know the lack of game­ playing that goes on between gay men. Men have that easy access to meaningless, casual sex, which gives them a totally different thrill." ­ George Michael to The Advocate.

"I left [my lover] Kenny a message that said, ´Darling, I´m in big trouble. You´re going to have to get me from the police station.´ He called me back and said, ´What did you do, darling?´ I said, ´Use your imagination.´ And he said, ´DUI?´ I said, ´Fuck­if only. Think again.´ He said, ´Oh no!´ I said, ´Please just come down and get me.´ But because of the honesty in the relationship, I wasn´t terrified about calling him. My immediate thought was, Thank God I have him." ­ George Michael.

"The media can only deal with gay personalities if they are sexless. You never see RuPaul on the arm of a six­ foot strapping basketball player, and that´s the same thing that kind of happened to me. I became this gender­ less exotic doll. I think that´s the only way people can deal with it. But, I love RuPaul. I think RuPaul is a trooper, and I think that drag queens are the suffragettes of our community." ­ Boy George to the San Diego gay publication Buzz, Dec. 31.

"I felt it was a terrible intrusion on my privacy [when I was outed after starring in The Madness of King George]. Ian McKellen always said I should come out. But why? I make my living playing heterosexuals. ... My partner [Trevor Bentham] and I don´t want to stand up and say we´re gay, because we think [announcing it publicly is] wrong. The best way to get people to accept you is to move about the community and show them there´s nothing to be afraid of." ­ Newly knighted British actor Nigel Hawthorne, star of TV´s Yes, Minister, to The Times of London, according to the New York Post, Jan. 5.

"It looks like something sleeping up there. It´s like it´s fur." ­ Make­ up artist and stylist­ to­ the­ stars Glenn Alfonso on Sir Elton John´s hair transplant, to Los Angeles´ gay In magazine, Jan. 19.

"In the porn world there are a lot of people who are saying, ´Enough with body and leg shaving and the dyed, arched eyebrows.´ It´s getting to the point where those hairless, pumped­ up things in gay porn look like Macy´s Thanksgiving Day Parade floats having sex." ­ Glenn Alfonso.

"I find what you said totally reprehensible. I have no problem promoting gay rights. My heart is racing. My blood is boiling. I´m so disgusted by what you said." ­ Denver School Board member Elaine Berman to an anti­ gay bigot who delivered a standard­ issue rant at the board´s Jan. 7 meeting. The board plans to expand gay protections in the public­ school system.

"We´ve always had a big gay following and we´ve always had many gay friends whom we love and adore. There´s a lesbian couple who are friends of ours and have been for years. One of them is my golf teacher. We spend Christmas day at their house, a house they built with their own hands in Northern Nevada. It´s usually just the two of them, and Daryl and myself, and that´s how we spend our Christmas. I don´t know if you know this, but Howie Greenfield, who wrote the lyrics to ´Love Will Keep Us Together,´ died of AIDS in 1986. He was a wonderful man, and he and his lover were very dear friends of ours. We have many friends in the gay community." ­ Toni Tennille (of the Captain & Tennille) to Boston´s Bay Windows, Dec. 23. Their song ´Love Will Keep Us Together´ was No. 1 in 1975.

"Years ago when AIDS was new, we all had a great sympathy for people who developed the disease. We did not at first know it was caused by a virus, nor how it was contracted. People who developed AIDS were not at fault for what happened to them. That was then. We now know that HIV is transmitted largely by unprotected anal penetration. The information is pervasive, the message is constant. What about people in 1999 who engage in unprotected anal sex? If they contract AIDS are we going to feel the same sympathy for them that we felt for the early victims? We might pity them, we might take care of them, but we are entitled to think they have been damn fools. We are going to blame them." ­ Syndicated gay columnist Paul Varnell.

"I had, in fact, never had unprotected anal intercourse before my infection. In some ways, it would have been more of a relief if I had. I could have beaten myself up for a stupid lapse, and isolated the sense of failure and shame I felt." ­ Writer Andrew Sullivan in the San Francisco Examiner Magazine, Jan. 10.

"Theorists on the right are too busy asserting that homosexuality is wrong to explain at any length why it occurs, and theorists on the left are too busy explaining why the whole concept of normal is meaningless to figure out how homosexuality arises. The vast terrain in between lies oddly unexplored." ­ Andrew Sullivan.

"The existence of an extreme left wing as the representation of gay people prevented me from coming out. It prevents other people from coming out, because if they have to be ´queer,´ they´re not going to come out. The establishment of these left­ wing elites actually impedes the possibility of gay people´s living fulfilled lives. It keeps them back in the ghettos." ­ Andrew Sullivan in The Advocate, Jan. 19.

"[Will] represents a large slab of the gay community that doesn´t get shown enough. To some people it´s not as colorful to think your brother or your neighbor or your doctor could be gay. It´s more interesting to have wacky drag queens. But there are a lot of Wills out there. It´s insane to expect us to represent everyone´s issues. Will can represent only who he is." ­ Will & Grace star Eric McCormack to The Advocate, Jan. 19.

"What worries me about that is less what Larry Flynt is doing [exposing the private lives of politicians] ... . What worries me is how are we going to get and keep good people in government unless we give them some right to privacy. If anybody thinks this is about Larry Flynt, they´re really missing it, because the tabloids could just as easily be doing what he´s doing and basically do do it. They don´t have quite the same willingness to put themselves in the spotlight as Larry does. ... Where do you think a lot of these stories that work their way into the mainstream press come from? They come from the tabloids and the tabloids pay for these stories all the time. The issue that has to be joined is whether or not people in public life are going to be allowed some degree of privacy in their private lives, not an issue of Larry Flynt." ­ Christie Hefner of Playboy to the Chicago Tribune Jan. 14.

"I wouldn´t worry so much about [a retaliation against others in adult entertainment]. I´ve never found that anything Larry Flynt does influences us. I think he´s always taken for the kind of unique and eccentric person that he is. He´s hardly been the first practitioner of this new form of outing." ­ Christie Hefner.

* Lambda Publications, The Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community,1115 W. Belmont 2D, Chicago, IL 60657; PH (773) 871-7610; FAX (773) 871-7609. See Outlines, Nightlines, Out Resource Guide, Clout! Business Report, Blacklines and En La Vida on the web at http://www.suba.com/~outlines/. E-mail feedback to outlines@suba.com!