LGBT News Quotes: Whoopi, Rufus, Fox & Friends
“I have a message for the presidents of Nigeria and Uganda: You are on the wrong side of history.”
— Actress and comedian Whoopi Goldberg in a video for the Human Rights Campaign in which she presented a call to action for the LGBT community in countries where LGBT rights are being oppressed. Uganda and Nigeria both have laws that criminalize same-sex relations and ban same-sex marriages. (HRC)
“I made a pretty ignorant statement a few weeks ago. … I made sort of an offhanded comment and I regretted it.”
— Fox News host Clayton Morris in a discussion with his co-hosts on Fox & Friends Saturday in which he apologized for earlier remarks regarding Facebook’s decision to include more than 50 gender options for users. Morris and co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck previously made light of the changes, Hasselbeck referring to Morris as “the male” and Morris joking that he’d changed his gender to “intersex.” (Media Matters)
“I can’t blame them. I was 18 and if you were a gay male in the late ’80s you were basically presumed dead because of the AIDS epidemic.”
— Musician Rufus Wainwright, in an interview with British paper the Observer. Wainwright reminisced on his parent’s reaction to his coming out, telling the paper they “reacted horrifically.” (Observer)
“The church must oppose violence against gay persons and should strongly advocate for the decriminalization of homosexuality. No one should be subject to a criminal penalty simply for being gay.”
— An editorial, “When the Law is a Crime,” in the American Jesuit magazine America, which called on Catholic leaders to examine the ways in which they “contribute, perhaps even inadvertently, to a culture of fear and shame” for LGBT people. (America)
“I am queer. What has prompted my writing today has been my questioning people’s constant assumption that a) I am hetero and b) I concur with their views.”
— Djuan Trent, a former Miss Kentucky, in a post on her blog “Life in 27” responding to last month’s court ruling against Kentucky’s same-sex marriage ban. Trent felt compelled to write the post after hearing numerous anti-gay statements in the wake of the ruling. (Life in 27)
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