"But now, the remarkable new reality for Obama in this election is that supporting marriage equality is smart politics. A majority of independents and young voters already favor equal marriage rights. These are important voting blocks, and a key part of the President's reelection strategy. Support for gay rights will also help him energize liberals in the Party and others who think he has not acted boldly around core progressive issues such as immigration and the environment and on other civil-rights issues. Hard-right conservatives who strongly oppose marriage rights, meanwhile, will never support Obama anyway"Democratic political strategist Richard Socarides, in The New Yorker, Dec. 19.
"My New Year's resolution is to werque myself more deeply into some high-level Wiccananigans and to straddle the cone of power with disarming intentions."Performer Justin Vivian Bond, to Queerty, Jan 2.
"It wasn't like handing over the torch, but it gave [Lady Gaga] my blessing, because it's nice to endorse young people. She was doing pretty well before that, but it was like me saying to her, 'I absolutely love you, and you go ahead and do what you want to do because you do it great.' That happened to me with people like George Harrison and Neil Diamond."Elton John to the L.A. Times, Jan. 1.
"Even myself, I had no idea of the many injustices in the gay community, whether it's the adoption of children, marriage, benefits, [or] estates. But a lot of it was the assumption in the hetero world, in the straight worldmy mother and I, we just assumed that gay people received automatically, by birthright, the same benefits as us."Pam Grier on her role on L Word, to The Advocate, Dec. 19.
"I asked [Newt] if he's elected, how does he plan to engage gay Americans. How are we to support him? And he told me to support Obama."Penn University Prof. Scott Arnold on Bilerico, Dec. 21.