"I want him (Obama) to succeed. But I am very upset by what he's not done in terms of rights of gays and lesbians. I understand it tactically in a campaign, but at this point I don't know. There is some belief that he actually doesn't believe in same-sex marriage. But it's fundamentally inexcusable for a member of the Democratic Party to stand on the principle that separate is now equal, but only on the basis of sexual orientation. We've always fought for the rights of minorities and against the whims of majorities."

--San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to The New York Times, Jan. 19.

"I've never been in. I've never said I was straight, and I'm not saying I'm gay now. I never lie, and I've never shied away from the topic. I've certainly chosen through my work to do things that promote the rights of LGBTQ people. I am not a hypocrite -- certainly not now."

--Ugly Betty actor Michael Urie, who plays Marc St. James, to The Advocate, February issue.

"I've been in a relationship (with Ryan Spahn) for a while now, and if you just met the two of us together we'd be 'gay.' But that somehow means anything that happened before (we met) didn't count -- and I don't feel that way. I know that some people feel that way. They were with women, but it always felt wrong. But it didn't for me. It felt right at the time. It didn't work out, but it also didn't work out with other men -- many times. That's why 'gay' never seemed right."

--Ugly Betty actor Michael Urie, who plays Marc St. James, to The Advocate, February issue.

"In the car heading to the Golden Globes. Pouring rain. I wonder how it'll affect all that fancy hair. So glad I didn't choose an up-do."

--Gay actor Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser) in a Jan. 17 tweet.

"It has been quite a journey for (Prop 8 federal case lawyer) Ted Olson. He's gone from being the conservative lawyer who helped crown W. by winning the Bush v. Gore case before the Supreme Court, to being a lesbian. 'Maureen,' he told me in his gravelly voice, 'one of the biggest lesbian groups in this country told me I'm already an honorary lesbian.'"

--New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Jan. 16.

"We're going to explain why allowing same-sex couples to have that same right that the rest of us have is not going to hurt heterosexual marriages. It has no point at all except some people don't want to recognize gays and lesbians as normal, as human beings."

--Prop 8 federal case lawyer Ted Olson to The New York Times, Jan. 16. The case is ongoing in San Francisco.

"The anti-gay-marriage proponents whipped up a moral frenzy (in California) in 2008, suggesting conjugal parity would harm children, summon the devil, tear down churches and melt civilization."

--New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Jan. 16.

"Obama sees himself as such a huge change that he can be cautious about other societal changes. But what he doesn't realize is that legalizing gay marriage is like electing a black president. Before you do it, it seems inconceivable. Once it's done, you can't remember what all the fuss was about."

--New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Jan. 16.

"Legalizing same-sex marriage would ... be a recognition of basic American principles, and would represent the culmination of our nation's commitment to equal rights. It is, some have said, the last major civil-rights milestone yet to be surpassed in our two-century struggle to attain the goals we set for this nation at its formation."

--Federal Prop 8 case lawyer Ted Olson writing in Newsweek, Jan. 9. The trial in the lawsuit arguing that Prop 8 violates the U.S. Constitution began Jan. 11 in San Francisco.

"Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples? Tellingly, when the judge in our case asked our opponent to identify the ways in which same-sex marriage would harm heterosexual marriage, to his credit he answered honestly: he could not think of any."

--Federal Prop 8 case lawyer Ted Olson writing in Newsweek, Jan. 9. The trial in the lawsuit arguing that Prop 8 violates the U.S. Constitution began Jan. 11 in San Francisco.

"There are now three classes of Californians: heterosexual couples who can get married, divorced, and remarried, if they wish; same-sex couples who cannot get married but can live together in domestic partnerships; and same-sex couples who are now married but who, if they divorce, cannot remarry. This is an irrational system, it is discriminatory, and it cannot stand."

--Federal Prop 8 case lawyer Ted Olson writing in Newsweek, Jan. 9. The trial in the lawsuit arguing that Prop 8 violates the U.S. Constitution began Jan. 11 in San Francisco.

"There have been claims that televising the courtroom proceeding (in the federal Prop 8 trial) would somehow be unfair to defenders of Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage. They are hazy and unsubstantiated and vastly outweighed by the strong public interest in the airing of a major civil-rights issue. But the (U.S.) Supreme Court's majority bought the false argument."

--New York Times editorial, Jan. 14.

"Yesterday at LAX, on the way up here, I was going through security. I removed my sunglasses and said, 'I want you to be able to see my beautiful eyes.' The guard said, 'Don't ever say that to another man.'"

--Courage Campaign Chair Rick Jacobs live-blogging the federal Prop 8 trial, Jan. 11.

"Today every gay or lesbian person in the country is on trial. The testimony brings up all of that 'stuff' that I keep pretending I've left behind. I grew up near Knoxville knowing I was gay, but never wanting to be. I dated girls, just like (plaintiff) Jeff did. I hid from myself. I became an Orthodox Jew in LA and almost got married because I did not want to be gay. When (lawyer David) Boies asked Jeff if he'd be in a more loving, stable relationship if he married a woman, it was not a throw-away. That's what the NOM folks want you to believe. They want you to believe that if Jeff or me or so many others of us who were born homosexual would just marry a woman, the world would be a better place."

--Courage Campaign Chair Rick Jacobs live-blogging the federal Prop 8 trial, Jan. 11.

"The proponents of Prop. 8 seek to hide and obfuscate. They did not want their own ad played in court. They did not want documents from their own strategists to become public because the documents show clearly that their entire campaign was built on the decades of prejudice and fear that we heard about in detail yesterday from Prof. Chauncey. As Ted Olson keeps saying, their arguments do not hold up in public or in court. They only win when they can manipulate the media and the public, using scare tactics."

--Courage Campaign Chair Rick Jacobs live-blogging the federal Prop 8 trial, Jan. 13.

"(David) Thompson, the smug attorney for the proponents of Prop 8, is taking the position that gays are not being discriminated against any more and so that cannot be the reason that Prop 8 passed. ... He's mentioning Will and Grace, the movie Philadelphia, and Brokeback Mountain as evidence that LGBT people are not being discriminated against."

--Marriage Equality USA's Davina Kotulski live-blogging the federal Prop 8 trial, Jan. 13.

"I have to confess to a feeling of being in a surreal environment. ... (S)ome of the most skilled attorneys in the nation argued before a federal judge about whether the institution of marriage is somehow illegal. Never did I think I would see the day where God's institution of marriage -- the most stabilizing, pro-family, child-benefiting institution in human history -- would be on trial before a federal judge in the nation whose forefathers founded the country on the premise of 'in God we trust.' But here we are."

--ProtectMarriage.com Executive Director Ron Prentice in a letter to supporters Jan. 11 as the federal Prop 8 trial got under way.

"I got a curt call from someone in the White House wanting to know how the president's voice mail (to me the night I won the election) got up on YouTube. And I said: 'I have no earthly idea how it got up on YouTube. It's not something I would know how to do.' And he said, 'Well, when the president leaves a private communication it should stay private.' And I said, 'Then he shouldn't have left it on my voice mail.'"

--Lesbian Houston Mayor Annise Parker on Sirius XM's Michelangelo Signorile Show, Jan. 11.

"The single biggest reason Obama's hope bubble burst is because of the unintended convergence of left and right opinion-making. The cauldron of opinion that churns incessantly on blogs, Twitter, social networks, and in the elite media generates the storylines that filter across the national and local press, providing the fodder for public opinion. Stalwarts of the left, dedicated to principles not personalities, hammered the administration; couple that with the partisan criticisms from conservatives and libertarians, and the net effect was to alter conventional wisdom and undercut Obama's image and message."

--Former Hillary Clinton adviser Peter Daou writing at Huffington Post, Jan. 20.

"I went in with the beginner's mind. I didn't know what I didn't know. I never imagined 4,036 (same-sex) couples getting married over a month. (Y)ou just couldn't escape from the perception 'he's just a single-issue person.' I remember standing there at the window, and I swear to you, I resigned myself to not even being re-elected mayor. This is a much more conservative town than people give it credit for."

--San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to The New York Times, Jan. 19.