Mercedes Ruehl Quotes

I used to be told if I talked about my sexuality in any way that we wouldn't have a tennis tour.

I've been an activist in the LGBT community for a long time. I think nothing's changed, I'm just a little bit more focused on the 'T' now than I was on the 'L' or the 'G.'

My sexuality has never been a problem to me but I think it has been for other people.

I don't need my sexuality celebrated, and I certainly don't need it to be criticized. I didn't necessarily want it to be observed, but here we are.

I wanted so badly to be straight like my friends. But I couldn't change it any more than I could change having brown eyes. And I knew I would never fit into what kids thought was normal.

I love seeing on Twitter when someone says I'm gay, and I say, 'So what does it matter if I am? So be it. I hope you are not voting for me because you are making the presumption that I'm straight.'

The gay thing has always been hard for me.

I think it would be tough for a lot of the athletes that I play with to think that while that I'm showering, that I'm performing on the field, I'm bleeding, I'm fighting with a person that is a homosexual.

Being gay, you're kind of forced to ask, I suppose, very existential questions from a very, very early age. Your identity becomes so important to you because you're trying to understand it, and, I think, from the age of, like, 9, you're being forced to ask questions... that other kids maybe don't have to ask.

I'm trying to tell kids if they are gay, it's OK to be gay. I've tried to tell families if they have a gay family member to accept them and love them as they always have.

Our intention is to really explore this transition and, beyond that, explore the particular things that someone comes up against when they're gay or lesbian.

Just because I'm in favor of gay rights doesn't mean that I'm gay or doesn't mean I'm some kind of 'sissy' or something. That's the language that you hear in locker rooms.

The gay community just recognizes what their closets are and we straight have to spend years trying to figure out which closet we are trapped in.

When you're a young kid and you're gay, you're out there on your own. And you're trying to figure this thing out. And your parents typically aren't gay.

I've been bisexual for as long as I can remember. I remember being made fun of in junior high for that. It was something that was shameful, and it really shouldn't be.

When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said - and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded - 'It's like hair color. It's nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It's not a subject.' This was a very healthy attitude.

Gay rights is just one of the social issues I'm interested in. I think that people might be less tense about it if we would all accept the fact that not everyone is wired the same way.

For thousands of years, there have been lies about being gay or not being gay. If you know they're lies, you're free.

I don't think the idea of homosexuality is really taboo any more. Our culture is evolving. This is an exciting time to be living.

Growing up in the Bible Belt of Texas, I thought for sure there was no way - if I'm 100 percent true to myself and come out as a gay, African-American person in 2015 - that people are going to be able to accept that and understand it.

I know that, as a bisexual, sometimes people who are gay or lesbian look down upon the bisexual community as well and assume that people who are bisexual just don't know what they want or are just playing both sides of the fence, and that's not the case, either.

It was difficult being a teacher and out of the closet in the '50s. By the time I retired, the English department was proud of having a gay poet of a certain minor fame. It was a very satisfactory change!

I think it would be bizarre to pick somebody to speak at the convention based on their sexual preference, because once you go down that road, why don't you pick a transvestite?

I am proud to state that every national Jewish organization we support enforces non-discrimination practices around sexual orientation and that more than 70 percent have written policies in place covering gender identity and expression.

God did not create gays and lesbians so He could have something to hate!