HomoQuotable - Mark Leno

"This bill simply affirms that California is a diverse state, and that we can all co-exist and make space for each others' beliefs without compromising the tenets of any religious group or individual. With the recent federal court ruling, we know that marriage for same-sex couples in California is on the horizon. Under the Civil Marriage Religious Freedom Act, churches and clergy members who fear their religious views are threatened by marriage equality will have clear and solid protections under state law. In addition, churches that welcome same-sex couples will continue to fully recognize those families within their faith." - California state Sen. Mark Leno, on the state Assembly's passage of his bill guaranteeing that no member of the clergy will ever be forced to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony against their wishes.

Leno's bill has the backing of Equality California and will be signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger after a concurrence vote in the state Senate, who first approved the item in May.

HomoQuotable - Andrew Sullivan

"It seems pretty obvious to me...that the current Pope is a gay man (just as it was blindingly clear that John Paul II was straight). I am not claiming that Benedict is someone who has explored his sexuality, or has violated his own strictures on the matter. There is absolutely no evidence of that, or of hypocrisy of any sort. But that does not mean that he isn't gay.

"In fact, Ratzinger's command that gay priests should actively lie about their orientation makes any public statement about this on its face lacking in credibility. But when you look at the Pope's mental architecture (I've read a great deal of his writing over the last two decades) you do see that strong internal repression does make sense of his life and beliefs. At times, it seems to me, his gayness is almost wince-inducing. The prissy fastidiousness, the effeminate voice, the fixation on liturgy and ritual, and the over-the-top clothing accessories are one thing.

"But what resonates with me the most is a theology that seems crafted from solitary introspection into a perfect, abstract unity of belief. It is so perfect it reflects a life of withdrawal from the world of human relationship, rather than an interaction with it. Of course, this kind of work is not inherently homosexual; but I have known so many repressed gay men who can only live without severe pain in the world if they create a perfect abstraction of what it is, and what their role is in it." - Andrew Sullivan.

HomoQuotable - Richard Socarides

"Can President Obama, who once supported gay marriage, only to oppose it now, change his position again? The answer is yes — and he in fact has no choice. People understand that most public officials who now support gay marriage once opposed it. It wasn’t until after they left office that Bill Clinton and Al Gore (and, most recently, Laura Bush) said that they favored marriage equality. As Nate Silver recently wrote on his blog FiveThirtyEight.com: “Does anyone really believe, in a country that is becoming close to evenly divided on gay marriage, that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Kerry are among the half who oppose it? “

"The sooner Obama changes his answer on this most important equal-rights issue of the day, the better off he will be. The Perry ruling provides the right opportunity to shift his emphasis and provide real leadership, reminding people that in this country, we look to the courts for direction on what our Constitution requires. It might also help the president’s popularity with those that elected him, and it puts him and his party on the right side of the equality question, where he, of course, belongs and presumably wants to be." - Former Clinton White House adviser Richard Socarides, writing for Politico.

HomoQuotable - B. Daniel Blatt

"In his latest email, the head of the gay affiliate of the California Democratic Party 'Equality California' tells us about 'the U.S. Constitution’s promise of equality for all'. Funny, I’ve read the U.S. Constitution more times than I can count and have never found. The framers did indicate that the charter’s purpose includes securing 'the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity'.

"Save for the Fourteenth Amendment when the word, 'equal,' appears, it only refers to legislative voting. And that Amendment specifies that 'No State shall make or enforce any law' which denies 'to any person within its jurisdiction.' Not sure how you get from that to a 'promise of equality.' Sorry, Geoff, you can’t read your ideological watchword into the constitution. It just ain’t there." - Gay Patriot blogger B. Daniel Blatt, hoping to be the next gay kapo quoted in court filings against marriage equality.

HomoQuotable - Jonathan Rauch

"Walker was right to say that separate isn't equal. Civil unions are hardly ideal. But his decision treats civil unions as if they were trivial or worthless. By refusing to give them any weight and declaring them not just inadequate as a matter of policy but prohibited as a matter of law, Walker uses the Constitution to put compromise out of bounds. [snip]

"So I think the decision is a radical one, but not, ironically, as it pertains to homosexuality or to marriage. No, Walker's radicalism lies elsewhere: In his use of the Constitution to batter the principles of its two greatest exponents - Madison and Abraham Lincoln, a Burkean who was steadfast in his belief that ideals must be leavened with pragmatism.

"History will, I believe, vindicate Walker's view of marriage. Whether it will see him as having done gay rights a favor is less clear. For all its morally admirable qualities, his decision sets the cause of marriage equality crosswise with moderation, gradualism and popular sovereignty. Which, in America, is a dangerous place to be." - Jonathan Rauch, writing for the New York Daily News. Rauch, who gay-married in Washington DC in June, is the co-founder of the homocon site, Independent Gay Forum.

HomoQuotable - David Mixner

"First of all, lets be extremely clear. Public Option was not a fringe issue. The desire for human rights and freedom for the American LGBT community is clearly rooted in the Constitution of the United States. Wanting our young not to die in useless foreign wars doesn't appear to me to be radical. Not wanting 14% of America's children to go to bed hungry at night seems like a reasonable expectation. And yes, waking up in the morning and knowing you have the dignity of a job is essential for the soul of America.

"These issues are not fringe, not left and not unreasonable. President Obama promised us if we believed again he would take us there. Maybe it is time in the White House and in the Obama administration to seriously examine their behavior, let some people go and try and start anew." - Former Clinton White House adviser David Mixner, responding to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' denouncement of the "professional left" to The Hill.

Gibbs says of America's progressives: "These people ought to be drug tested. They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality. They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president."

HomoQuotable - Larry Kramer

"Barbra Streisand is a hypocrite. If she had made my play about AIDS, The Normal Heart, in 1986, when she first acquired the rights, only to sit on them for a full ten years without filming it, she could have done something for gay rights when we were really in the sewer of death. But no, she chose to go off and make such vitally important and classic movies as Nuts and The Mirror Has Two Faces. Barbra Streisand cares about gay rights as much as i care about spending a zillion dollars decorating a colony of houses in Malibu. As the mother of a son who is not only gay but HIV positive, she should be ashamed of herself.

"Fortunately and at last, an exciting movie version is now being prepared by openly gay director-producer Ryan Murphy to star Mark Ruffalo. i hope it will prove that the best thing that happened for The Normal Heart is that Barbra Streisand didn't make it. I think it is important for all her many gay fans around the world, which certainly had once included me, to know the above." - Larry Kramer, responding to Barbra Streisand's statement of support for the overturn of Prop 8.

HomoQuotable - Pastor Tom Brock

"John Townsend, a writer for Lavender magazine, wrote a commentary attacking me and the Catholic support group Courage, which I was attending. This is a group for Christian men who struggle to overcome same-sex attraction. Townsend had lied his way into this confidential group in order to attend and expose my presence there. This was done because of my public stance against homosexual behavior and same-sex marriage.

"It is true that I attended this group. But contrary to what Townsend and the Lavender article strongly implied, I have never engaged in homosexual behavior. An internal investigation by my congregation concluded: 'We find no evidence from any sources we examined or people we interviewed to indicate that Pastor Brock had engaged in any physical contact or in a homosexual relationship of any type.' The truth is that I have been celibate my whole life. [JMG: My emphasis]

"Townsend also states that we believe 'unrepentant homosexual activity damns to hellfire.' I do believe this, as it is the teaching of the Bible and the historic teaching of the Church that persisting in any lifestyle of sin (not only homosexuality) without repentance and faith in Christ will exclude people from the kingdom of God (I Corinthians 6:9-11)." - Sad, tortured, 57 year-old virgin (he claims) Pastor Tom Brock, who is actively working to ensure that his fellow homosexuals are as abjectly miserable as he is.

RELATED: Last year Brock claimed that God sent a tornado to destroy a Minnesota Lutheran Church because they had voted to allow gays to serve as ministers. He maintains that he still believes that today.

HomoQuotable - Tammy Bruce

"Hate crime legislation accomplishes only one thing — the notion that some people in this country are more important than others. Last time I checked all the civil rights movements were based in the rejection of this notion. Yet here we are, in the warm seats of power, and now a 'legislative priority' is to make sure crimes committed against us are a more serious offense and punished more aggressively. I find it an obscene reversal of what so many fought for throughout the 20th century — to establish a group of people as deserving of special treatment because of either their complexion or sexual orientation. People have died in this county to end those sorts of policies. For us to embrace them is beyond shameful." - Homocon asshat Tammy Bruce, speaking to the Washington Blade's house Quisling, Jessica Lee. Bruce adds that men who target lesbians for corrective rape should be treated no differently than other rapists.

Homoquotable - Ellen DeGeneres

"A couple months ago, I let FOX and the "American Idol" producers know that this didn't feel like the right fit for me. I told them I wouldn't leave them in a bind and that I would hold off on doing anything until they were able to figure out where they wanted to take the panel next. It was a difficult decision to make, but my work schedule became more than I bargained for.

"I also realized this season that while I love discovering, supporting and nurturing young talent, it was hard for me to judge people and sometimes hurt their feelings. I loved the experience working on "Idol" and I am very grateful for the year I had. I am a huge fan of the show and will continue to be." -Ellen DeGeneres, announcing her decision to leave American Idol after only one season.

HomoQuotable - Andrew Sullivan

"It is worth noting, once again, how utterly hollow the Vatican is on the subject of homosexuality. It is an institution so embedded with homosexuality it makes Broadway look straight. The stories I've heard! The network of gay priests is vast in Rome, and is, in my mind, as unhealthy for those who get away with it - the hypocrisy must hollow out the soul in the end - as for those who impose it. Instead of grappling with this fact, owning it, and seeking to diversify the priesthood by ending the celibacy requirement and men-only anachronism, the Vatican clings on to denial and repression.

"And as society and the actual church evolves - as both must - the denial and repression must increase in proportion - until the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing becomes apparent even to the most devout. Increasingly, on these issues of modernity, the Vatican of the new millennium seems like the Soviet Politburo of the 1980s. They pretend to believe what they preach while we pretend to obey them. One day, this surreality will pop like a bubble. One day." - Devout Catholic Andrew Sullivan, responding to the latest gay scandal at the Vatican.

RELATED: If you ever get a chance to sit down with our Father Tony, ask him for a few of his juicier stories from his time serving at the Vatican. "Gayer than Broadway" is putting it mildly.

HomoQuotable - Evan Wolfson

"Freedom to Marry calls on NOM to repudiate the anti-gay prejudice that underlies its political agenda and fuels its attack campaigns. NOM's "Summer for Marriage" anti-gay bus tour has devolved from a media gimmick to a display of prejudice and incitement to violence. While funneling millions of dollars into political campaigns aimed at stripping away basic protections from gay people and their families, NOM's typical ploy is to conjure up phony claims of harassment and infringement and complain when anyone speaks the truth about its record and agenda.

"But with today's display, the mask slipped, revealing what lies beneath NOM's diversions, protestations, and veneer. The real victims of NOM are committed, loving gay couples across the country who are denied the freedom to marry and the critical safety net that marriage brings. And all Americans are harmed by the divisiveness, prejudice, and violence that NOM's actions invite." - Freedom To Marry executive director Evan Wolfson, responding to the "solution to gay marriage" sign brandished at NOM's rally in Indianapolis yesterday.