Friday Quotables...Maupin, Lennox, Barrowman and McKellen

"For 40 years we've wasted too much energy on our intractable enemies - the Jerry Falwells and the Jesse Helmses. It's time to turn the heat up on our "friends" - the politicians who court our votes but still regard our full citizenship as expendable in a pinch. When Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama offer us civil uniions in lieu of same-sex marriage, they're just reworking the ancient segregationist argument of "separate but equal.'"
- author Armistead Maupin in the 40th anniversary issue of The Advocate

"There's something really odd about the testosterone-driven need to go to war, and fight, and the ego that's so insatiable, so power-hungry, and yet so insecure. I slightly despair of women ever having reasonable partnerships with heterosexual men, because I think we're such different creatures, on such different planets. I think that's why homosexual men seem to get on so much better with each other, because they know their own mindset so much better."
- singer Annie Lennox in the current issue of OUT Magazine

"Once you've been put in either the limelight or authority, and you are an honest and truthful human being,, you are political."
- actor John Barrowman in the current issue of Out Magazine

"It's bollocks that gay people can't play straight characters. If straight actors can play gay in "Brokeback Mountain," then why can't gay actors play straight? I nornally play straight characters; King Lear [his current stage role] is straight...The UK is awash with very successful actors who are gay and out, always has been. Nobody turns a hair and the public never minds. Challenge the industry by coming out...the best thing is to be honest to yourself and other people."
- Sir Ian McKellen in the current issue of LA's Frontiers Magazine.