Best of the Last Word 2005

2005 Year in Review: 12 of the year's most notable GLBT-related quotes

By Metro Weekly Contributor on January 4, 2006

”It seems that editors at what are, arguably, the nation’s most respected (and liberal) newspapers believe that one personal detail cannot be mentioned in even the most complete biographies — being a lesbian.”

— Patrick Moore, in an op-ed, on the New York Times and other major newspaper obituaries of Susan Sontag that omitted any reference to the famous intellectual’s partner, photographer Annie Leibovitz. (Los Angeles Times) (January)

“This child’s world was turned upside down all because a Virginia court issued a knee-jerk, anti-gay custody restriction. He lost his home, his school, his park and, most importantly, the proximity of the caring adult who has helped raise him.”

— Susan Sommer, supervising attorney at Lambda Legal, on an Alexandria, Va., court order granting partial custody to the child’s mother, while requiring the father’s same-sex partner to move out. The order forced the same-sex couple to sell their home in Virginia and move to two smaller apartments in Montgomery County, Md. The father and his partner had raised the child together for more than five years. The mother lives in Florida. (Associated Press) (February)

“Why don’t we have a constitutional amendment on lying, George Bush? Why don’t we have a constitutional amendment on adultery? Adultery has split up far more marriages than gay marriages have.”

— Rev. Al Sharpton, one of three 2004 Democratic presidential primary candidates to support same-sex marriage, speaking as a guest of the Madison, Wis., Distinguished Lecture Series. (Capital Times) (March)

“This is not a hate crime. It never would have happened if [he] wasn’t drunk.”

— The unnamed 22-year-old girlfriend of Joseph Lawrence, 23, the accused murderer of Jason Gage, a gay man, in Waterloo, Iowa. She told a reporter that Lawrence reacted violently to a sexual advance. (The New Mexican) (March)

”Washington, D.C., is the political success story of the gay movement. Quietly but effectively and don’t say that we have been docile.”

—Frank Kameny, countering Larry Kramer’s claim that D.C. gays are ”docile” at an April 21 reading of Kramer’s new book, The Tragedy of Today’s Gays at Lambda Rising. (Washington Post) (May)

”Of course it’s a civil rights issue…. This is what Martin Luther King would want.”

— Monica Simpson, organizer of the first Black Gay Pride festival in the Carolinas, to be held in Charlotte, N.C., July 14-17, countering claims that racial and gay civil rights movements are not similar. (WCNC-6News) (July)

”I committed a hate crime. I didn’t love my daughter unconditionally.”

— Mary Lou Wallner, whose adult lesbian daughter committed suicide nearly a decade ago, speaking to a PFLAG audience at Newport Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, Wash., July 9. The PFLAG event was called to counter a June conference by Focus on the Family that promoted the idea of homosexuality as preventable and treatable. (Seattle Times) (July)

”Fred [Phelps] makes an easy target for the media and secularists who are tempted to paint any opposition to ‘gay rights’ as hateful. For this reason, I have sometimes wondered if Phelps and his lawyerly clan are ‘gay plants.’”

— Peter LaBarbera, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, suggesting in an Aug. 15 statement that the infamously homophobic Phelps family may be a creation of gay civil-rights advocates. (365Gay.com) (August)

“My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don’t make that mistake yourself. Life’s too damn short.”

— Armistead Maupin, as quoted on a Starbucks coffee cup. Aramark catering has removed the cups from the Starbucks at Baylor University, a Baptist school in Waco, Texas. (Associated Press) (September)

“Gay Pride — well, you can do that in Sydney, in London, in San Francisco. But I’m not sure if I want to do that in Singapore.”

— Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on the recent decision to ban gay pride marches because there are “some segment of Singaporeans who vehemently disagree with that.” (PlanetOut.com) (October)

”If it’s a choice between serving in the ordained ministry with my credentials intact, and serving as an ‘out’ lesbian person acknowledging the most important relationship in my life and not having those credentials, I’ll take being out.”

— Rev. Irene ”Beth” Stroud, upon being defrocked by the United Methodist Church’s Judicial Council Oct. 31 for her relationship with her female partner. (Washington Post) (November)

“I believe the homosexuals are using the residence halls as a recruitment tool to get more individuals into their group.”

— David Miller, father of a University of Florida student given gay-inclusive diversity training as part of her job as a resident assistant. Miller was detained briefly by police while preaching about the “immorality” of the UF Office of LGBT Affairs in a public plaza. (Independent Florida Alligator) (November)

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