I Didn't Say It ... Happy Pride!

Sting, musician, on what the gay community has done for straight men:

“Thanks to the gay community, we [straight] men can actually follow our feelings and demonstrate our affection for each other without being afraid. The generation before us, our fathers, they would shake hands and that would be it. There would be no hugging or affection.”

Straight men could learn a lo from gay men about being open and loving with one another.

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Caleb Shomo, frontman for the rock band Beartooth, coming out as gay:

"There's been a lot of speculation surrounding my personal life as of late, and I feel compelled to set the record straight before it affects those I love any further … I am a proudly gay man. This is something I've been unpacking and reckoning with in my life for quite some time now. It's been difficult to navigate the feelings surrounding the subject and figure out what to do with this fact. I spent a decade burying feelings with alcohol, and honestly, when I decided to put it down and focus on exploring why I felt this way for so long, it's been a direct path to me reconciling with my sexuality in hopes that it will eventually lead me to experiencing self-love. One thing I decided before I wrote a single note or lyric of the upcoming album is that whatever happens, I will express myself wholeheartedly and fully. I encourage anyone who's struggling with who they are to give yourself grace. Do the hard work instead of burying it down as deep as you physically can thinking it will change like I did. Holding these things in only hurt you and those around you. Love you all, and hopefully this is a step in the right direction to loving myself one day.”

Welcome out, Caleb! And please accept as our gift to you, the Official Coming Out Toaster Oven™ and your own copy of The Gay Agenda.

No matter how long you took to get here, you’re welcome; you’re among family.

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Fleur Shomo, Caleb’s wife of 14 years, opened up her husband’s coming out:

“I will always want to love, protect and support Caleb. I have cared more about his well-being over the years than anything else in the world. To see the confusion and pain he went through and the highs and lows and wanting to help but now knowing how. You never want anything more for your person than for them to just be ok. I am the only person that is having to deal with the duality of this situation, to support him whilst losing everything has been incredibly hard to figure out. You can love and support your person through the hardest time in their life, whilst also be completely demolished and lose yourself at the same time... Our nearly 14 years of marriage was wonderful and full of so much fun, adventure & love. Nobody will know anything about our marriage like we do. And no one can ever truly know what depths of love exist between two people unless they are those people. I already miss it & my husband more than anything. Our story was a good one. And now it is done.”

My heart breaks for Fleur but also weeps for her strength and ability to still love her husband, even as this chapter of his life, and their lives, comes to a close.

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Willie Nelson, country singer, on his life and gay people:

“I’ve known straight and gay people all my life. I can’t tell the difference. People are people where I came from.”

It’s just that simple.

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Meryl Streep, actor, on her The Devil Wears Prada co-star Stanley Tucci during his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony:

"You can't even call Stanley a national treasure anymore because I've just been around the world, and truly, the affection hurled at him globally, he's just marinating in it. And it's impossible not to love Stanley Tucci. Urbane, sly, funny, bitchy, and generous and curious and so elegant. Stanley has an elegance to his heterosexuality. His undeniable heterosexuality, which is formidable. Not that heterosexuality is better than any other kind of sexuality. It's just that elegance—real, unforced, natural, unstyled elegance—is sometimes harder for straight men. His soulfulness is evident in the most elevated characters and also in the lowdown characters. It's a thing he can't lose, no matter if it's a priest or a prosecutor or a pervert or Puck or Paul Child, he always finds something true and surprising in every man that he plays. He transforms character acting into leading man material."

I know Stanley Tucci is a heterosexual male, but because he’s, as Meryl says, ‘sly, funny, bitchy’ he fits into a gay man’s idea of a certain kind of man … well, he’s my idea of a fabulous gay man … and also a Husband-In-My-Head.

And Carlos is fine with that!

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Why Is It ...

… that even when I’m on my third ‘mhm’, they just keep on speaking!

… that no one realizes that when you falsely accuse me of having an attitude, it creates exactly the attitude that you thought I had.

… that I really want to be nice but everyone annoys me?

… that cocktails are so dangerous; I mean, they often taste like juice and then suddenly you can’t walk.

… that I’m too old for Snapchat and too young for Life Alert.

… that every single day there is something to do and I am sick of it.

… that I feel like Willie Nelson’s been the same age my whole life?

… that while it’s nice to see people embracing therapy, a few of you are in need of an exorcism.

… that I always have the need to get the last word, even if I have to mail it to you.

I Didn't Say It ....

Thomas Roberts, openly gay MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts, on the importance of marriage equality:

"I don't think that we would have gone for a civil union. Getting married in the fall was something very personal, and very incredible! ... It's only made our lives better...The otherness, it's time for that to go away....If the Supreme Court gets rid of DOMA and goes ahead and strikes Prop 8 out of the way, is that going to get rid of homophobia in this country? No. But it does make the government stand up to appreciate the fact that the LGBT community exists in this country. We're good taxpaying Americans..."

That’s what equality does, and it’s good for everyone.

Willie Nelson, on marriage equality:

"For same-sex couples, taxes are different, benefits are different, survivor benefits are different. It's crazy...I've known straight and gay people all my life...I can't tell the difference. People are people where I came from..It's about human rights. As humanity, we've come through so many problems from the beginning to here. I guess it finally had to come around to this. This is just another situation, another problem. We'll work it out and move on. We'll look back and say it was crazy that we ever even argued about this...I never thought of  marriage as something only for men and women."

I’d expect this from Willie, who has written and sung songs about gay cowboys and such, but it’s still refreshing to hear another country music star—along with Carrie Underwood—come out for equality.

Marie Osmond, on marriage equality:

"The God that I believe in is a god of love, not fear. I don't tell my children if you're not good you're going to Hell. I tell my children that God will be there for them when they struggle. That's the God I believe in...I believe in [my lesbian daughter's] civil rights, as a mother. I think my daughter deserves everything that she desires in life. She's a good girl. She's a wonderful child. I don't think God made one color flower. I think he made many..."

Thanks to Marie, for stepping out of her family’s anti-equality shadow. Her brother Donny is rabidly anti-marriage equality, and members of her family recently hosted a ‘traditional marriage’ fundraiser in Utah.

Nice to know that not all Osmond’s live in the past.

A$AP Rocky, rapper, on marriage equality:

"For me, growing up in Harlem and then migrating down to SoHo and the Lower East Side and chillin' down there and making that my stomping ground ... That was a big thing, because I'm from Harlem, and downtown is more artsy and also more open-minded. So I got the best of both worlds. It was like being on the streets and then being in school at the same time, and I tried to keep my hands in everything just so I wasn't missing out on any fun. I just always wanted to be knowledgeable of my whereabouts, my surroundings, and what was going on with our generation ... So now that I'm here and I've got a microphone in my hand and about 6,000 people watching me, I need to tell them how I feel. For instance, one big issue in hip-hop is the gay thing. It's 2013, and it's a shame that, to this day, that topic still gets people all excited. It's crazy. And it makes me upset that this topic even matters when it comes to hip-hop, because it makes it seem like everybody in hip-hop is small-minded or stupid—and that's not the case. We've got people like Jay-Z. We've got people like Kanye. We've got people like me. We're all prime examples of people who don't think like that. I treat everybody equal, and so I want to be sure that my listeners and my followers do the same if they're gonna represent me. And if I'm gonna represent them, then I also want to do it in a good way."

And, as homophobic as country music can be, rap is even more so. Which makes it all the better that rappers are coming out for marriage equality, and coming out, period.

Rob Gronkowski, New England Patriots tight end, on having a gay teammate:

"I got this question before, about a year ago, and I basically will say the same answer that I did a year ago. You've got to accept the player. Everyone has their own ways to live their life and as long as he's respecting me, keeping distance, respecting myself, I'll respect him back. If he's being a great teammate and he's a guy on the field doing a great job, well then you've got nothing to complain about. He's another teammate and another friend …. that's all you've got to ask for."

No matter what you do in life, you're going to work alongside gay folks, and, really, does that matter? Does being straight matter?

No. Just do the job, and do it well.

Christopher Clemons, Seattle Seahawks defensive end, on the other hand, Tweeted his opposition to the idea of gay players on football:

“Who on Gods earth is this person saying he's coming out of the closet in the NFL? ...  If you didn't do it when you were in high school or college then why wait til your in the NFL? Whoever he is he didn't just start ... I'm not one to judge anyone because that's there personal preference. ... it doesn't matter how good they are. That will immediately separate a lockerroom and divide a team ... I'm not against anyone but I think it's a selfish act.  They just trying to make themselves bigger than the team … No one said anything about be a homophobic. I just think something's should be left at home."

First off, Clemons, it’s ‘their’ not ‘there’. And it’s ‘you’re’ not ‘your’.

Second off, it isn’t a preference because preference implies choice, and, are you saying you chose to be straight because you didn’t like being gay which implies maybe you tried it?

Third off, you are being a bigot and a homophobe when you talk separate locker-rooms.

And finally, since when does knowing about a player’s sexual orientation make them bigger than the game. It’s all about the game; no one cares at all that you say you’re straight when you’re playing, so who would care that a player is gay?

Chris Kluwe, Minnesota Vikings punter and outspoken LGBT-marriage equality advocate, on an NFL player coming out:

“Instead of looking at an openly gay player as a distraction, ask yourselves—how much better would that player play if he didn't have to worry about hiding a core part of who he is? How many more sacks would he have, free of that pressure? How many more receptions? How many more rushing yards? Fans, media—will an openly gay player be a distraction? Only if you make it one. Only if you insist on denying someone the freedom to live his own life on his own terms, instead of under someone else's control. Stop worrying about who a player dates; worry about his completion percentage, or tackles for loss, or return average. I can promise you, on Sundays the only thing he's worried about is lining up and doing his job to the best of his ability, or else he's going to be cut (just like any of us). Players—Those of you worried about a gay teammate checking out your ass in the shower, or hitting on you in the steam room, or bringing too much attention to the team—I have four simple words for you. Grow the f*** up. This is our job, we are adults, so would you kindly act like one?”

Leave it to Kluwe to just flat-out say it: Grow the f*** up.

Connor Barwin, Philadelphia Eagles linebacker, dismissing Christopher Clemons’ remarks that a player coming out would be a "selfish" distraction.

"I don't think it would be selfish. As a heterosexual man, I can't speak to what it must feel like to be gay in the NFL. I don't know what somebody goes through. I imagine it’s very hard to go through. So I would support that teammate no matter what. I don't think it would be a distraction. And even if it was, the NFL has distractions in every locker room. You would work through it like anything else. If somebody had a problem with a teammate being gay, they would realize very quickly that it was something they could get over."

Barwin, who has an openly gay older brother, makes another very valid point.

As a team you work to get over your distractions. You get over it. 

Sue Everhart, Georgia GOP chairwoman, on how straight people would pretend to be gay just to get marriage benefits:

"You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow. Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride."

Seriously, how stupid is this woman?

Um, Sue? Dingbat? If a straight man wanted to have marriage benefits he could just get married to a woman like he’s always been able to do.

Seriously, straight people pretending to be gay for the benefits of marriage when they are already entitled to the benefits of marriage just by the virtue of their heterosexuality?

If this is the GOP no wonder they are so $%@#ed up.