So They Say... 10/15/2009

Ever wonder what 'Girls Gone Wild' creator Joe Francis thinks about gay rights? Gay Navy veteran talks about gay visibility in the military. Andrew Sullivan feels betrayed (in a political sense). HRC prez says to give Obama a chance. And Belinda Carlisle talks gay marriage. Here's the latest round-up of memorable quotes from around the LGBT world for the past week.

It’s personal

With the gay movement, it's personal. The same religious-right assholes who took away my civil rights and put me in jail for a year because they don't like what I do for a living have taken away gay rights. I know firsthand how it feels to have your civil rights stripped from you. P.S., lots of lesbians marched, too.
- 'Girls Gone Wild' creator Joe Francis to the New York Post's Page Six on October 13 on why he attended the National Equality March.

Telling without asking

I even saw "don't ask, don't tell" used against heterosexual female service members who had reported being the victims of sexual assault. If my chief acted on their statements, he would be forced to punish a friend of his, so the easiest way to make the problem go away was to scare the women into silence by saying something like: "You weren't sexually assaulted by a male in my unit. I hear you're a lesbian." After all, homosexuals have no rights in our military. You can't sexually assault someone who doesn't exist.
- Joseph Rocha, gay Navy veteran, in the Washington Post on October 11.

Zero tolerance for HRC

I am incensed and infuriated, and I think Solmonese should resign as soon as possible. I'm not tolerating this, none of us should tolerate this anymore...The Human Rights Campaign has twenty years of zero achievement for gay rights in Washington, DC...They are basically the battered wife of the Democratic Party establishment...We gay people are being betrayed by our leadership...They are so out of touch with the young generation. They are so out of touch with what America actually is and could be. They are full of fear and self-loathing, and we have to stand up to them."
- Journalist and gay rights activist Andrew Sullivan to Reel Gay TV at the National Equality March in Washington, D.C. on October 9.

Great things coming

I've seen some reactions to my weekly message, that I gave the President a free pass not to fulfill his campaign promises until 2017. Here's something from what I wrote that the authors didn't include in their pieces: "I predict great things coming out of our work with this President, but that does not mean that I am satisfied today. Our community cannot be satisfied so long as DOMA is on the books and an inclusive ENDA is not." I am not satisfied. HRC is not satisfied. Our community is not satisfied and that's why thousands of LGBT people and our allies are in Washington this weekend to demand more. That's our position. Stopping here would mean losing. But stopping here is not what we intend to do.
- Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese in a statement posted on the HRC Web site on October 10.

Send a message to DC

My son James is gay, and I want him and every other gay person out there to have the same opportunities and rights that I've had in life. Next month the state of Maine will be voting to decide whether or not to preserve the equal marriage law signed by the governor earlier this year. After the devastating setback that was Proposition 8, it is absolutely vital that we win this battle in the Pine Tree State. By doing so we will send a strong message to President Obama, and the representatives in Washington, that public opinion is with us, and it is time for federal action... Together let's affirm equal rights for all Americans and give hope to young gay people, like my son, for a better future.
-Belinda Carlisle, formerly of the Go Gos, in a video message endorsing Maine's "No On 1" campaign.