She/he said this week

compiled by Howard Israel

“There is nothing that the GLBT community can do to appease its opponents except, perhaps, disappear. But in one exit poll in the 2004 presidential election, 60 percent of voters favored either gay marriage or civil unions. The younger the voters, the more likely they are to favor marriage. To me, that is reason enough to fight for same-sex marriages instead of civil unions.”
– Carlos T. Mock, in an op-ed column titled “With these words, let us wed”, making a case for the right for same-sex couples to be legally married, Chicago Tribune, May 20, 2008.

“There seems to be a growing number of blogs written by women coming out to themselves and the world later on in life. Many of the women I have met along the way haven’t come out to themselves until later in life. I have become very interested in blogs like this. Reading the stories, the struggles, and how these women all came to terms with their individual sexuality. Even though we like to say that being gay is only a small part of who we are, in all reality I believe it’s a huge part of who we become. We are defined by many things, but who we love tends to define us in its own way.”
– Kelly Leszczynski, Managing Editor of the blog titled TheLesbianLifestyle.com, highlighting another blog titled RecoveringStraightGirl.com/.

“I ask for the movement to continue because my election gave young people out there hope. You gotta give ’em hope.”
– Harvey Milk, assassinated San Francisco Board of Supervisor, the inscription on the granite base of the bronze portrait sculpture of Milk installed recently in SF’s City Hall. Milk, the first openly gay politician to win an elected office of any prominence and long considered a martyred hero of the gay rights movement, was elected to the SF Board of Supervisors in 1977 and shot to death a year later along with Mayor George Moscone by Dan White, a former police officer who had just resigned his supervisor’s seat. The prophetic statement was recorded before his death.

“As we have seen in past reports from teachers and students, anti-LGBT bullying in schools is commonplace. This report illustrates that school leaders must show a commitment to all students to truly make their schools safe for everyone. As principals are critical players in ensuring safe learning environment for all students, it is imperative that they understand the hostile climate oftentimes faced by LGBT students.”
– Kevin Jennings, GLSEN Executive Director, concerning GLSEN’s recently released study titled “The Principal’s Perspective: School Safety, Bullying and Harassment”, GLSEN.org, May 12, 2008.

“Allowing the formation of this club on our campus conflicts with my professional beliefs and religious convictions in that we do not have other clubs at Irmo High school based on sexual orientation, sexual preference, or sexual activity. In fact our sex education curriculum is abstinence based. I feel the formation of a Gay/Straight Alliance Club at Irmo High school implies that students joining the club will have chosen to or will choose to engage in sexual activity with members of the same sex, opposite sex, or members of both sexes.”
– Eddie Walker, Irmo High School principal, Irmo, South Carolina, in his resignation letter, The State newspaper, Columbia, South Carolina, May 22, 2008. Walker resigned his job rather than allow A Gay/Straight Alliance to form for the coming school year. Federal law prohibits discrimination against any non-curricular club – unless it is unlawful – if others have been allowed to form.

“By comparison to many of the angry right-wingers that have dominated the Republican Party with Senator McCain’s general support he is less extreme and he has from time-to-time shown an amiability that contrasts with the snarling demeanor of some of his co-partisans. But all this shows is that it is possible to be prejudiced all of the time and pleasant some of the time when it comes to the rights of GLBT people. With one exception, the relevance of which Senator McCain himself is rapidly diminishing, John McCain’s record is completely opposed to our efforts to combat prejudice and gain legal equality.”
– Congressman Barney Frank, speaking out on John McCain, in a commentary on the Democratic Party blog titled “Pride at the Polls”, May, 2008. Frank points out that the one exception in McCain’s voting record has to do with his vote against the constitutional amendment that would have banned marriage. McCain voted against that amendment on states’ rights grounds. But McCain has started to retreat from that position in his effort to win over the right wing support.

“You got the question right the first time. It’s ‘why is marriage good for America?’ Same-sex marriage is good for all the same reasons. It’s good for gay people. I think if you asked straight people who have ‘ve been married or hope to get married to imagine life without marriage, it’s very hard to imagine. A society with successful marriages, and a lot of them, is a more stable, safer, more successful society. America’s problem is not too many marriages, it’s too few. Gay people are asking to be part of this social contract – to care for each other so society doesn’t have to.

– Jonathan Rauch, author of the book “Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America”, in an interview about same-sex marriage, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, April 24, 2008.