“Bullying is unacceptable, and specifically with gay teens, it’s just wrong. Everyone needs to realize that this is a major issue, and we need to do anything we can to help. I’ve heard so many of our gay fans speak about how one of my songs, ‘Who I Am,’ has inspired them. It’s a song that I wrote in a moment of coming into my own as a man, discovering how my whole world was setting up as an adult. It was great to see people connect to that song in their own way, specifically bullied gay teens who were encouraged to be exactly who they are.”—Tween pop sensation Nick Jonas to the Advocate, Feb. issue.
“When I gave a girl a card, it was the worst, because I knew I had to do it in the most blank way possible, as if I was giving the card under doctors orders or under the gun or at least throw it at her as if to say, ‘this is out of my hands.’ Kids know when there’s something about you that is different. They smell it and sense it and it sickens them because they recognize it in themselves and if they don’t attack someone will soon do it to them. Bullying starts, as it is a form of self-hatred expressed outward, and since the cruelty towards ourselves we are capable of knows no bounds, it can be bad. Insanely so.”—Comedian Margaret Cho, to Huffington Post, Feb. 14
“And while Virginia Democrats work to provide a fair shot to young people across Virginia, Republicans in Richmond would rather spend their time defining which families should be allowed to adopt foster children. Let me tell you this: As the first Virginia governor to ban discrimination in state government based on sexual orientation—and as a senator who stood up and voted to repeal the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy—that is mean-spirited, and that is wrong. It is wrong to deny a foster child the opportunity to belong to a supportive, modern family simply because it is led by a same-sex couple in a loving and committed relationship.”—Virginia Sen. Mark Warner to The Washington Blade, Feb. 15.
“Where is the tolerance of someone having a belief structure that is based in nature, that is based in reason, that is based in faith…The intolerance of the left, the intolerance of the secular ideology, it is a religion on to itself, it is just not a biblical based religion. And it is the most intolerant—just like we say from the days of the atheists in the Soviet Union.”—Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum in Think Progress, Feb. 8.