21st Century Proverbs: Barry Manilow

"I was there in the '70s when suddenly this very strange thing (AIDS) started happening to friends of mine...By 10 years into it I had lost half of my phone book. All these people that I had worked with and that I knew were gone, and at a relatively young age. I had never thought that I would be that close to death; it was shocking...So whenever anybody asks me to do something for this disease, I'm there."

—Barry Manilow, to the Palm Spring gay magazine The Bottom Line, February 13

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21st Century Proverbs: Britney Spears

"Love is love! People should be able to do whatever makes them happy. I have lots of gay and lesbian friends and I want to see them get married... I'll do whatever it takes to make their dreams come true. Discrimination has no place in America."

—Britney Spears, tweeting on April 23

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21st Century Proverbs: Howard Stern

"My feeling about gay people is that we have a responsibility not only to make gay marriage acceptable and to make gays feel accepted as much as heterosexuals (but) that we have to hold gay people above all others...In order for things to change—because any one of you could have gay children or gay relatives or gay friends...we have a responsibility to make this acceptable, to get all this bullshit so that some gay kid going to high school isn't getting the shit beaten out of him just because he's gay. Listen, I'm as hetero as they come. I don't even understand gay. I don't understand how you look at another guy and want to fuck him in the ass (but) what is this hang-up with the gay marriage? Who cares? Get on with your life!"

—Howard Stern, on his radio show, April 29

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21st Century Proverbs: Kathy Griffin

"There are (gay) expressions to this day, I don't really know what they mean. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine two days ago, and this was the two of us, literally sitting in the living room of my house saying, 'Well, exactly what is a sloppy pig bottom?' ... There are many of my gay friends that use expressions that are so shocking that I think they're trying to fool me into thinking that they know what they mean. And I still don't really know what a daisy chain is."

—Kathy Griffin, to New York's HX, February 5

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21st Century Proverbs: Kenny Chesney

"I've got a long line of girls who could testify that I am not gay."

—Kenny Chesney, protesting too much to Playboy, March 2009 issue

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21st Century Proverbs: Gavin Newsom

"That (Iowa's legalization of same-sex marriage) caught me, candidly, by surprise, proverbially flat-footed. It was around April 1st, so I thought, honestly, it was an April Fool's joke. ... Now you have four states that are legally sanctioning same-sex marriage, and New York and California are not among them. Who could have predicted that?"

—San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to the New York Times, April 11

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21st Century Proverbs: Dolly Parton

"I have a lot of gay friends, lesbian friends. I am not gay. I have been accused of that. But I have been happily married for 42 years to the same man. And he's not the least bit, you know, threatened by the fact that I may be gay. And he knows I have a lot of friends. But I love everybody. It doesn't matter to me."

—Dolly Parton to Larry King, February 21

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21st Century Proverbs: Hugh Jackman

"I'll never forget kissing a guy on stage [in The Boy From Oz] and someone from the crowd shouting, 'Don't do it, Wolverine!' ... There's far too much importance placed on people's sexuality. I love sex...but it's not the measure of love or relationships. And whether you like girls or boys, whether you leave the light on or off: Who cares? I always find sexuality one of the least interesting things about a person."

—Hugh Jackman (to Entertainment Weekly)

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21st Century Proverbs: Patti LaBelle

"I was asked earlier if I was gay. Well, I can answer this way: I'm very gay and happy. I'm very happy to be here for my gay friends. I've never been with a woman, so I guess I'm straight, OK? But I'm straight enough to know the difference between right and wrong. I am straight enough to know that if you want to marry whoever you want to marry you should be able to."

—Patti LaBelle, serving as grand marshal at Miami Beach Gay Pride, April 18

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21st Century Proverbs: Jenna Jameson

"In my day you hardly had to have sex, let alone two dicks up your ass."

—Jenna Jameson, on the changing times in straight porn to Rolling Stone

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