“Everyone has feelings and everyone is a person. That’s what we continue to promote to our kids. I hope [the gay community] gets equality and what they’re looking for.”

Brent Sopel, a player for the National Hockey League’s Chicago Blackhawks, who carried the Stanley Cup in the Chicago Gay Pride parade. Sopel has since been traded to the Atlanta Thrashers. (Chicago Tribune, June 22)

“We do not need a justice on the Supreme Court who sees it as her life mission to write the homosexual version of Roe v. Wade by striking down one-man, one-woman marriage across America.”

Tony Perkins of the arch-conservative Family Research Council, urging senators to oppose Elena Kagan’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. During Senate hearings, Kagan has declined to express a direct opinion on gay marriage. (On Top Magazine, July 3)

“Their society is finished, they have no morals.”

Mary Karooro Okurutu, spokesperson for the ruling party in Uganda, reacting to the recent marriage of Iceland Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir to her longtime partner.

“I think I’ve been in every gay club from New York to California. I would be in clubs with my recorders in my pocket, taping people talking. But at the end of the day, I drew more from my sisters and my mother. I’ve been mimicking them my whole life. They’re in my bones.”

Actor Nelsan Ellis, who is straight, on how he creates the character of Lafayette, the flamboyant gay Louisiana man he portrays on HBO’s vampire series “True Blood.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, July 4)

“Like maybe I’m having a clandestine affair with Ricky Martin. I know it’s really gonna upset a lot of gay men — I’m sure hundreds of ‘em are gonna be jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge — but I ain’t available. I ain’t gay. Sorry.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) responding in a New York Times interview to long-standing rumors about his sexual orientation (WLTX.com, July 1)

Top photo: Brent Sopel (via blackhawks.nhl.com)