More Berge

Stephen Colbert: You cosponsored a bill requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Why was that important to you?
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA): Well, the Ten Commandments is not a bad thing for people to understand and to respect.
Colbert: I'm with you.
Westmoreland: Where better place could you have something like that than in a judicial building or in a courthouse?
Colbert: That is a good question. Can you think of any better building to put the Ten Commandments in than in a public building?
Westmoreland: No. I think if we're totally without 'em, we may lose a sense of our direction.
Colbert: What are the Ten Commandments?
Westmoreland: What are they? You want me to name them now?
Colbert: Yep.
Westmoreland: Mmmmmm... Don't murder... Don't lie, don't steal... uh... I can't name 'em all.
Colbert: Congressman, thank you for taking the time away from keeping the Sabbath day holy to talk to me.
--A priceless interview by The Colbert Report's Stephen Colbert with the first-term congressman from Georgia's 8th district, aired June 13, 2006. (Crooks and Liars has the video.)

"They're against abortions, and they're against homosexuals...well, who has less abortions than homosexuals? You'd think they'd make natural allies!"
--George Carlin

"The same people in the Congress who are busy kicking holes in the social safety net are also those who would sell off the nation's forests for a song, give away its national parks, and trash its wilderness preserves; there is a connection between the two impulses."
--Paul Gruchow, Boundary Waters

“There is something about the question ‘What’s it like to kiss a guy?’ that is innately homophobic. What does it matter? You’d never in a million years ask an actor who was doing an interracial relationship what it was like to kiss a black person.”
--Peter Paige (Emmett on Queer As Folk), in an Advocate interview, June 19, 2001

"The fact is, we who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered, we do have an agenda. And here it is: We think we should be able to fight for our country like John Kerry and serve in the military. We believe, revolutionary as it may sound to Rick Santorum and Tom DeLay and Jerry Falwell, we believe people ought to be able to be hired for a job and be judged solely on how well they do the work and not on what somebody else thinks about who they are. We go so far as to believe that a 15-year-old who is different in a lot of ways sexually from others ought to be able to go to high school without being beaten up. I admit it, we believe that. And we even believe, it's true, that when two people are in love and they are willing to be morally and legally committed to each other and financially responsible to each other, that if they are prepared to get married, it's a good thing for the stability of society. We believe that."
--Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), speaking at the Democratic National Convention, July 29, 2004

"WHO IS MARILYN MUSGRAVE? It's a question worth asking, and I've been doing some research into her work as a legislator on Colorado. Her record is almost entirely devoted to an obsession with homosexuality. In 1998, the Denver Post reported the following: 'Musgrave’s four years in the House have produced few dividends for her district. A region with intense school-finance and highway needs and a distressed agricultural base has bigger worries than gay marriage, the issue to which Musgrave has devoted much of her energy. Further, her abrasive tactics appear to have blocked her efforts in other, more constructive, areas.'
"Musgrave didn't only promote several bills denying gay couples any recognition under the law under any name, she also voted against including them in anti-discrimination policies in employment. Her other obsession is the reintroduction of the military draft, and virulent opposition to any legal abortions, including those caused by rape or incest. Musgrave was the only member of the Colorado legislature to vote against a bill to create a registry of people convicted of domestic violence; and she voted against a bill allowing a woman to take three days of unpaid leave from work to seek protection from an abusive husband. She voted against a bill requiring schools to come up with a safety plan to combat bullying. She was one of only three state senators to vote against a bill barring female genital mutilation. [!]
"This is the woman gently referred to by president Bush as 'Marilyn' when endorsing her federal constitutional amendment to ban gay citizens from having the right to marry. That's who she is. And she is what the Republican party, under George W. Bush, is slowly becoming."
--Andrew Sullivan, in his weblog, April 16, 2004.

"When you hear 'human rights,' think gays. When you hear 'human rights,' think only one thing: someone who wants to rape your son. And you'll get it just right. OK, you got it, right? When you hear 'human rights,' think only someone who wants to molest your son, and send you to jail if you defend him. Write that down, make a note of it."
--San Francisco-based radio jerk Michael Savage, on his program August 3, 2004

From "Ask Marilyn" in Parade magazine, April 7, 2002: "...The following point was made to me recently: 'Gay people cannot be normal. If everyone were gay starting tomorrow, the human race would die out, so being gay cannot be nature's intended way.' I'm having trouble finding a logical counter-argument. Do you know one?" -- Gordon, Herndon, Va.

"Yes. The original argument is defective. Substitute the word 'male' for 'gay,' and you'll see the flaw: 'Male people cannot be normal. If everyone were male starting tomorrow, the human race would die out, so being male cannot be nature's intended way.' Or you could substitute the word 'female.' In either case, the argument makes no sense: Being male or female is perfectly normal." --Marilyn Vos Savant

"The assertion that we -- particularly gay men -- are just like everyone else perpetuates a myth that is downright untrue and this myth perpetuation will ironically prevent us from ever really being just like everyone else."
--July 23, 1998

"Contrary to what some 'leaders' of the gay/lesbian community must think, we don't have to hide what those 'leaders' must have concluded is the seamier side of our community from straight people for them to believe we are deserving of equal rights."
--July 23, 1998

"Unlike real liberals of the past -- people who were truly interested in other points of view and who were tolerant of others -- the new style liberal is, in fact, the antithesis of liberal, and they are quite mean."
--October 15, 1998

"Last year, mean-spirited Republican state Rep. Steve Nass introduced legislation that would have financially punished municipalities which provide domestic partnership benefits to their employees.... This legislation was not terribly Republican."
--March 11, 1999

"There is no evidence that openly gay and lesbian elected officials will do the right thing in terms of advancing our civil rights."
--April 8, 1999

"As unjust and absurd as the Boy Scouts prohibition against gays is, they are, in fact, a private organization and should be allowed to discriminate if they so choose, as wrong and unjust as that is."
--August 26, 1999 (the column cited by Louis Shelton of the Traditional Values Coalition as evidence that Evertz is anti-Boy Scout)

"I do not actually live in Madison. My partner and I live in a neighboring village which is, by anyone's definition, the most politically conservative community in Dane County. We do so, in part, because it's nice to know that our neighbors who are our friends really are our friends and are not simply liberals wishing to add our friendship to their list of liberal credentials."
--October 7, 1999

"In the early years of the pandemic, we were constantly saying, 'AIDS is not a gay disease; it affects everyone' to win widespread political and financial support. As soon, however, as someone threatened to cut off that support, they were accused of being homophobic, because AIDS disproportionately affected gay men."
--November 4, 1999