What I have come to recognize is that just as “the black problem” turned out to be a problem of white racism, just as “the woman problem” turned out to be a problem of male sexism, so “the homosexual problem” is really the homophobia of many heterosexuals.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (1924-2006) American minister, social activist
The Courage to Love, ch. 5 (1982)
(Source)
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On the subject of Biblical texts and examples to why you can’t do certain things with your body that you wish to, I find that absolutely absurd. I’ve always been extremely uncomfortable with the idea in any society that belief is based on revealed truth, that’s to say on a text like a Bible or a Qur’an, or whatever it is. It seems to me that the greatness of our culture, for all its incredible faults, is that we have grown up on the Greek ideal of discovering the truth, discovering by looking around us, by empirical experiment, by the combination of the experience of generations of ancestors who have contributed to our sum knowledge of the way the world works, and so on. And to have that snatched away and to be told what to think by a book, however great it may be in places, this is a book that says you can sell your daughter into slavery, it’s a book that bans menstruating women from within miles of temples. The fact that it also says that for one man to lie with another man is an abomination, is no more made relevant or important than the fact that you can’t eat shellfish.
Stephen Fry (b. 1957) British actor, writer, comedian
An Evening with Callow & Fry, Norwich (2003-12)
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DEAR MISS MANNERS: What should I say when I am introduced to a homosexual “couple”?
GENTLE READER: “How do you do?” “How do you do?”
Judith Martin (b. 1938) American author, journalist, etiquette expert [a.k.a. Miss Manners]
Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, ch. 3 “Basic Civilization” (1983)
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Indeed, Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in the society is not between liberals and conservatives but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers and those who do not.
Judith Martin (b. 1938) American author, journalist, etiquette expert [a.k.a. Miss Manners]
Miss Manners Rescues Civilization, ch. 5 “The Law Takes Over from Etiquette” (1996)
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That I ne’er saw thee in a Coach with Man,
Nor thy chaste Name in wanton satire met;
That from thy sex thy liking never ran,
So as to suffer a Male-servant yet;
I thought thee the Lucretia of our time:
But, Bassa, thou the while a Tribas wert,
And clashing — with a prodigious Crime
Didst act of Man th’ inimitable part.
What Oedipus this Riddle can untie?
Without a Male there was Adultery.[Quod numquam maribus iunctam te, Bassa, videbam
Quodque tibi moechum fabula nulla dabat,
Omne sed officium circa te semper obibat
Turba tui sexus, non adeunte viro,
Esse videbaris, fateor, Lucretia nobis:
At tu, pro facinus, Bassa, fututor eras.
Inter se geminos audes committere cunnos
Mentiturque virum prodigiosa Venus.
Commenta es dignum Thebano aenigmate monstrum,
Hic ubi vir non est, ut sit adulterium.]Martial (AD c.39-c.103) Spanish Roman poet, satirist, epigrammatist [Marcus Valerius Martialis]
Epigrams [Epigrammata], Book 1, epigram 90 (1.90) (AD 85-86) [tr. Sedley (1702)]
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"To Bassa". This epigram is often untranslated or omitted in collections. Martial thought lesbian sexuality perverse, though he enjoyed and wrote highly of pederasty, as any good Roman male would. (Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:That with the males thou ne'er wast known to mix,
Nor e'er gallant did envious slander fix;
That thine officious sex thee homag'd round,
And not a man durst taint the hallow'd ground:
What less than a Lucretia could'st thou be?
Ah! what was found? Th' adulterer in thee,
To make the mounts collide emerg'd they plan,
And monstrous Venus would bely the man.
Thou a new Theban torture could'st explore,
And bid adult'ry need a male no more.
[tr. Hay (1755); Book 6, Part 3, ep. 44]Inasmuch as I never saw you, Bassa, surrounded by a crowd of admirers, and report in no case assigned to you a favoured lover; but every duty about your person was constantly performed by a crowd of your own sex, without the presence of even one man; you seemed to me, I confess it, to be a Lucretia.
[tr. Bohn's Classical (1897), "On Bassa"; the "translation" then shifts to the original Latin.]In that I never saw you, Bassa, intimate with men, and that no scandal assigned you a lover, but every office a throng of your own sex round you performed without the approach of man -- you seemed to me, I confess, a Lucretia; yet, Bassa -- oh, monstrous! -- you are, it seems, a nondescript. You dare things unspeakable, and your portentous lust imitates man. You have invented a prodigy worthy of the Theban riddle, that here, where no man is, should be adultery!
[tr. Ker (1919)]Never having seen you taking a man's arm, Bassa,
realizing that no gossip attaches a lover to you,
noticing how you were always surrounded
by a throng of your own sex doing things for you
and letting no man approach you, I admit I felt
that we had another Lucretia in you.
But you were doing the raping, Bassa,
working out ways for identical twin genitals
to double their fun by pretending that one -- yours --
was the man in this case, a barefaced lie
you've conjured up a riddle only the Sphinx could solve:
Adultery, without any man involved.
[tr. Bovie (1970)]I never saw you close to men, Bassa, and no rumor gave you a lover. You were always surrounded by a crowd of your own sex, performing every office, with no man coming near you. So I confess I thought you a Lucretia; but Bassa, for shame, you were a fornicator. You dare to join two cunts and your monstrous organ feigns masculinity. You have invented a portent worthy of the Theban riddle: where no man is, there is adultery.
[tr. Shackleton Bailey (1993)]I never saw you, Bassa, with a man
No rumor ever spread of an affair.
You seemed as chaste as any woman can,
With Lucrece pure you made a worthy pair.
Belatedly I found I venerated,
A woman who a woman penetrated.
You found an amphisbaenic instrument --
To give cunts simultaneous content.
You pose a riddle Sphinxes never knew,
To be a woman and a woman screw.
[tr. Wills (2007)]Bassa, I never saw you hang with guys --
Nobody whispered that you had a beau.
Girls surrounded you at every turn;
They did your errands, with no attendant males.
And so, I guess I naturally assumed
That you were what you seemed: a chaste Lucretia.
But hell no. Why, you shameless little tramp,
You were an active humper all the time.
You improvised, by rubbing cunts together,
And using that bionic clit of yours
To counterfeit the thrusting of a male.
Unbelievable. You’ve managed to create
A real conundrum, worthy of the Sphinx:
Adultery without a co-respondent.
[tr. Salemi (2008)]Bassa, I never saw you close to men; no gossip linked you to a lover here.
A crowd of your own sex was always with you at every function, no man coming near.
I have to say, I thought you a Lucretia, but you (for shame!) were fucking even then.
You dare link twin cunts and, with your monstrous clitoris, pretend to fuck like men.
You'd suit a Theban riddle perfectly:
where there's no man, there's still adultery.
[tr. McLean (2014)]
For five days last week, the White House and its Capitol Hill allies did urgent battle against what they perceive, or say they perceive, as an attack on the institution of marriage. It’s a strange sort of attack, to be sure: a wonderfully pacific attack, a supportive attack, an attack without the slightest intention or capacity to cause harm, consisting, as it does, of the earnest wish of certain loving couples to join themselves to that very institution and thus to feel themselves, and be accepted as, full members of the American (and human) family.
Hendrik Hertzberg (b. 1943) American journalist, editor, speech writer, political commentator
“Distraction,” The New Yorker (19 Jun 2006)
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On a push by Republicans for a Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Marriage should be between a spouse and a spouse, not a gender and a gender.
Hendrik Hertzberg (b. 1943) American journalist, editor, speech writer, political commentator
“Obama and Gay Marriage: Runaway Bride?” New Yorker (30 Jun 2011)
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To many white Americans, President Obama must have been corrupt, because his very occupation of the White House was a kind of corruption of the traditional order. When women attain positions of political power usually reserved for men — or when Muslims, blacks, Jews, homosexuals, or “cosmopolitans” profit or even share the public goods of a democracy, such as healthcare — that is perceived as corruption.
Jason Stanley (b. 1969) American philosopher, epistemologist, academic
How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, ch. 2 (2018)
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Asking who’s the “man” and who’s the “woman” in a same-sex relationship is like asking which chopstick is the fork.
Ellen DeGeneres (b. 1958) American comedian, actress, writer, producer
(Attributed)
Frequently attributed to DeGeneres, but no specific citation found. The phrase may have pre-existed and been popularized by her.
At least when the Emperor Justinian, a sky-god man, decided to outlaw sodomy, he had to come up with a good practical reason, which he did. It is well known, Justinian declared, that buggery is a principal cause of earthquakes, and so must be prohibited. But our sky-godders, always eager to hate, still quote Leviticus, as if that looney text had anything useful to say about anything except, perhaps, the inadvisability of eating shellfish in the Jerusalem area.
Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“America First? America Last? America at Last?” Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 Apr 1992)
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Divorce isn’t caused because 50% of marriages end in gayness.
Jon Stewart (b. 1962) American satirist, comedian, and television host. [b. Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz]
The Daily Show (2006-06-06)
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Debating gay marriage with William Bennett and the assertion that marriage equality will weaken the institution.
What is the fear of the “gay agenda” that has so upset people? Do people think that if gay people are given a place at the table, they’ll be so convincing we’ll all end up blowing them? What is the issue? “You know, I’m straight, but you’ve made such a convincing argument …”
Jon Stewart (b. 1962) American satirist, comedian, and television host. [b. Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz]
Stand-up comedy performance at RIT (2005)
Clearly it is not Scripture that creates hostility to homosexuality, but rather hostility to homosexuality that prompts certain Christians to retain a few passages from an otherwise discarded law code. The problem is not how to reconcile homosexuality with scriptural passages, but rather how to reconcile the rejection and punishment of homosexuals with the love of Christ.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (1924-2006) American minister, social activist
The Courage to Love, ch. 5 (1982)
(Source)
Does it really matter what these affectionate people do — so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses!
Beatrice Campbell (1865-1940) English actress [Mrs. Patrick Campbell, née Beatrice Stella Tanner]
(Attributed)
Apocryphally a rebuke c. 1910 to a young actress who criticized an older actor as seeming too affectionate toward the handsome leading man in the production. Most famously given in this form in Alan Dent, Mrs. Patrick Campbell (1961).
Further discussion and variants:
Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
In William Jaggard, ed., The Passionate Pilgrim, Part 2 “Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music,” No. 19 “When as thine eye hath chose the dame,” l. 345-46 (1599)
(Source)
Though Jaggard claimed all the poems in the collection were by Shakespeare, most of them (including this one) are not generally considered to actually be by him.
The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.
Pat Robertson (1930-2023) American politician and televangelist
Fund-raising letter to Christian Coalition members in Iowa (1992-07)
The letter urged supporters to vote down Iowa's state Equal Rights Amendment (the referendum failed that November).
More discussion of this quotation:Frequently misattributed to his speech at the 1992 GOP Presidential Convention.
- Did Pat Robertson Say Feminism Encourages Women to "Kill Their Children"? | Snopes.com
- ROBERTSON LETTER ATTACKS FEMINISTS - The New York Times
- EQUAL RIGHTS INITIATIVE IN IOWA ATTACKED - The Washington Post
