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Rex Wockner

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Quote/Unquote

"I'm not going to get old in public. I've seen some great men, literally great men, deteriorate in public view. ... I don't think you should do that. ... One goal is to retire early enough to write some books. I wish I could write more fluidly than I do. I can still talk a lot more easily than I write." -Gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., to the Associated Press, Dec. 29. "I'm for it [same-sex marriage]. I personally have no desire to get married. That's for straight Gay people. I'm not one of 'em. I wanna invest in Gay divorce and tattoo removal, the growth industries of the next decade." -Filmmaker John Waters to the Portland, Ore., Gay newspaper 'Just Out,' Dec. 2. "I'll rashly predict that the big Hollywood question posed on the front page of The Los Angeles Times after those stunning weekend grosses - 'Can Brokeback Mountain Move the Heartland?' - will be answered with a resounding yes. All the signs of a runaway phenomenon are present, from an instant parody on Saturday Night Live to the report that a multiplex in Plano, Tex., sold more advance tickets for the so-called 'Gay cowboy picture' than for King Kong." -Columnist Frank Rich writing in 'The New York Times,' Dec. 18. "The audience is forced to recognize that Gay people were fixtures in the red state of Wyoming (and every other corner of the country, too) long before Matthew Shepard and Mary Cheney were born. Without a single polemical speech, this laconic film dramatizes homosexuality as an inherent and immutable identity, rather than some aberrant and elective 'agenda' concocted by conspiratorial 'elites' in Chelsea, the Castro and South Beach, as anti-Gay proselytizers would have it. Ennis and Jack long for a life together, not for what Gay baiters pejoratively label a 'lifestyle.'" -'New York Times' columnist Frank Rich writing about Brokeback Mountain, Dec. 18. "This landmark measure ends the situation where same-sex relationships were invisible in the eyes of the law, denied any recognition of their commitment. It gives Gay and Lesbian couples who register their relationship the same safeguards over inheritance, insurance and employment and pension benefits as married couples. No longer will same sex couples who have decided to share their lives fear they will be denied a say over the partner's medical treatment or find themselves denied a home if their partner dies." -British Prime Minister Tony Blair as the United Kingdom's Civil Partnership Act took effect, Dec. 21. Registered same-sex couples receive all the rights and obligations of matrimony. "It's the sex. We stay together because of the sex. The emotional life is dead now, but the sex is so good I can't let go." -Actor Nathan Lane on his relationship with his The Producers costar Matthew Broderick, to the San Diego Gay magazine 'Buzz,' Dec. 23. "I'm not supposed to say it, but Matthew's Gay. He's really Gay. He's much Gayer than I am. It wouldn't take much - a couple of drinks. He's very agreeable." -Actor Nathan Lane on his The Producers costar Matthew Broderick, to the San Diego Gay magazine 'Buzz,' Dec. 23. Broderick, who was being interviewed simultaneously, responded, "Well, listen to her!" "It's such a huge disconnect. When I'm touring around with my book I get crowds of people come to see me in places that are hardly considered progressive. They come to see me, they like Queer Eye, and then they turn around and cast [votes for] these ballot initiatives that characterize our relationships as meaningless." -Queer Eye for the Straight Guy food guy Ted Allen to the 'San Francisco Bay Times,' Dec. 15. "What we do on Queer Eye is in many ways superficial when it comes to hair and clothing and decorating your apartment, but we are five openly Gay men who are playing ourselves. We've had the chance to be ourselves on television, reach a lot of straight American living rooms and be embraced there. I think that helps." -Queer Eye for the Straight Guy food guy Ted Allen to the 'San Francisco Bay Times,' Dec. 15. "All those femmes want to turn us butches into hausfraus. It's what you bitches all want. [B]utches are all pussy-whipped." -Comedian/singer/actress Lea Delaria to London's 'Pink Paper,' Dec. 8. "The people in that place are very conservative. They've very wealthy. They're to the right of Mussolini, OK? Forty percent of the population are plastic surgeons. That is a true fact about Palm Springs." -Lesbian comedian/singer/actress Lea Delaria to London's 'Pink Paper,' Dec. 8. "The 20 percent of the city that was spared [flooding], 80 percent of those parts of the city are Gay [neighborhoods]. All those preachers who blamed the Gay community for Katrina - our neighborhoods were the ones that had the rainbow over us and were blessed." -New Orleans Human Relations Commission Executive Director Larry Bagneris to this column, Dec. 18. "We have met several times trying to figure out how to keep the doors open. The base of our support has always been in the community itself, we've never had a lot of corporate support, [and] many of our heavy donors are scattered around the country. Many we haven't been able to talk to. We don't even know where they went. Also, it's hard to ask people for money when they don't even have a house. At a time when there are a lot of people in our community desperately needing help and desperately needing community, the center needs to be up and running and operating. But we can't keep the doors open without insurance and rent and utilities." -Randal Beach, co-chair of the Lesbian and Gay Community Center of New Orleans, to this column, Dec. 18. Donations can be sent to LGCCNO, 2114 Decatur St., New Orleans, LA 70116. "We're ready for the FEMA people to go away. In fact, we'll help them pack. They've sucked up all the rooms in the hotels. We don't know what they're doing. We need our tourists to come and visit and stay in the hotels that they can't get into because the FEMA people are occupying them. Basically, we're occupied by the federal government right now. We need them to go away. [And] tell all of our [Gay] people it's time to come home. We're ready for you." -Eric Evans, manager of the New Orleans Gay bar Rawhide 2010, to this column, Dec. 18. "If we look at the ... HIV vaccine, we're going to have an HIV vaccine. It's not going to be made by a [drug] company. They're dropping out like flies because there's no real incentive for them to do it. We [the government] have to do it. [If] it works, they [the drug companies] won't have to make that big investment. And they can make it and sell it and make a profit." -National Institutes of Health AIDS research division head Dr. Edmund Tramont as quoted by the Associated Press, Dec. 26. "I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, nor do I have any intention of seeing it. ... I'm a very susceptible person, easily influenced, a natural-born follower with no sales-resistance. [W]ho's to say I won't become enamored with the whole Gay business? ... I just know if I saw that movie, the voice inside my head that delights in torturing me would have a field day. 'You like those cowboys, don't you? They're kind of cute. Go ahead, admit it, they're cute. You can't fool me, Gay man. Go ahead, stop fighting it. You're Gay! You're Gay!' Not that there's anything wrong with it." -Actor Larry David from the HBO TV series 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' writing in The New York Times, Jan. 1.
International News

AUSSIE ACTIVISTS DEMAND PARTNERSHIP RECOGNITION As the United Kingdom's new Civil Partnership Act took effect last month, Australian GLBT activists demanded that their government create a national civil-union scheme for straight and Gay relationships. "Certification is important when same-sex or heterosexual de facto couples are required to prove their relationship status, in areas as diverse as child custody, ... death benefits, passport applications or during a medical emergency," said Australian Coalition for Equality spokesperson Kelly Pilgrim-Byrne. However, a day later, Prime Minister John Howard said no way. "I think marriage is for men and women. That's why we amended the Marriage Act [to ban same-sex marriage]," Howard said. "That's the common understanding of marriage in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and I would be opposed to the recognition of civil unions." At present, the state of Tasmania offers partnership registration and the Australian Capital Territory has announced plans to follow suit. Same-sex couples have access to full marriage in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain and Massachusetts. South Africa's highest court recently legalized same-sex marriage but gave legislators one year to make the necessary legal adjustments. Partnership or civil-union laws that grant registered same-sex couples some, most or all rights and obligations of marriage are in force in Andorra, the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, Iceland, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tasmania, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. states of California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey and Vermont. CZECHS MORE GAY-FRIENDLY THAN NEIGHBORS Czechs are more Gay-friendly than Poles, Slovaks or Hungarians, a poll by the Public Opinion Research Center, Central European Opinion Research Group, and Focus agency has found. Forty-two percent of Czechs think Gay couples should be allowed to get married, compared to 25 percent of Hungarians, 24 percent of Slovaks and 21 percent of Poles, the Czech News Agency reported. Registered partnership receives higher marks, supported by 62 percent of Czechs, 42 percent of Poles, 39 percent of Slovaks and 36 percent of Hungarians. Citizens of the four nations strongly oppose Gay adoption - 84 percent of Poles, 77 percent of Slovaks, 72 percent of Czechs and 70 percent of Hungarians want to keep children out of same-sex families. Not surprisingly, Czechs are more likely to report they know someone Gay. Forty-three percent said so, compared to 30 percent of Slovaks, 14 percent of Poles and 8 percent of Hungarians. The poll questioned 1,075 people over age 15. No margin of error was provided in press reports. SOUTH KOREAN LESBIANS REPORT DISCRIMINATION Eighty-three percent of South Korean Lesbians say they've experienced discrimination, abuse or personal distress because of their sexual orientation, a survey by the Lesbian Rights Research Institute has found. The organization questioned 507 Lesbians in their 20s and 30s in the cities of Daego, Busan and Seoul, according to The Chosun Ilbo newspaper. The women cited lack of emotional stability, impaired self-confidence, feelings of abnormality, conflict with families and friends, trouble at school or work, threats of being outed and sexual assault. Additional findings included: 62 percent of those questioned figured out they were Gay in their teens and 31 percent realized it in their 20s. Fifty-nine percent had dated men at some point. "People in this society have a fixed and biased view that only heterosexuality is normal," the institute said. "That prejudice is leaving Lesbians exposed to both conflict and crime." RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH BREAKS WITH SWEDISH LUTHERANS The Russian Orthodox Church broke relations with Sweden's state-funded Lutheran church on Dec. 27 because it blesses same-sex couples who have registered their partnership, MosNews.com reported. The Church of Sweden Assembly voted 160 to 81 in favor of the policy Oct. 26. "We have received with great disappointment and grief the news that not only does the Lutheran Church of Sweden not oppose so-called homosexual marriages, but has even ruled to establish an official blessing ceremony," the Russian church's Holy Synod stated. "[T]he testimonies of the Holy Writing leave us no doubt that homosexuality is considered a sin and 'confusion.'" Sweden has offered registered partnerships - which bestow nearly every right and obligation of marriage - since 1995. LITHUANIAN MP HOPES TO BAN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE Lithuanian Member of Parliament Irena Degutiene of the Homeland Union party reportedly will begin collecting signatures in hopes of amending the nation's constitution to ban same-sex marriage, the Lithuanian Gay League reported. Some other MPs have denounced the move as unnecessary, saying same-sex marriage already is unconstitutional or, at the least, prohibited by the Civil Code. Neighboring Latvia banned same-sex marriage constitutionally on Dec. 21, when President Vaira Vike-Freiberga signed legislation that had passed Parliament by a vote of 65 to 6 with 9 abstentions. GAY STORE OPENS IN MOSCOW Moscow's first non-porn-oriented Gay store has opened, The Out Traveler reported in its January issue. Indigo, located near City Hall, offers books, videos, DVDs and tchotchkes. "We would like homosexuals to have the opportunity to obtain literature, films and Gay souvenirs in one place without having to be afraid of the stares and condemnation from the homophobic public," owner Ed Mishin told the Gay.ru Web site. ILGA TO MEET IN GENEVA The 23rd World Conference of the International Lesbian and Gay Association will take place in Geneva from March 27 to April 3. The confab will coincide with the 62nd session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which repeatedly has voted down or refused to consider resolutions supporting equal treatment for Gays and Lesbians. Five ILGA "preconferences" will deal with Transgender rights, religion and sexual orientation, women's health, men's health and GLBT workplace rights. For more information, visit http://www.ilga-world-conference-2006.ch/.