Nuggets & bites.

"Cleveland mayoral hopeful Anthony Brown... attended the candidates' forum organized last week by gay and lesbian groups.... Brown was asked if he believed that homosexuality was a choice. 'I don't know whether it's a choice or not,' he said, 'but I do know what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah.'

"Amidst gasps and hooting, Brown confessed that he wasn't there to tell the crowd what it wanted to hear, an assertion no one was willing to challenge."

--From the Free Times, September 14. Cleveland's mayoral primary was held on October 4.

"In the early '60s it was difficult to invite two men who were living together for dinner, but [my husband] Alfred adored Billy [Haines] and Jimmie [Shields, Haines's lover]. To hell with it. If anyone doesn't like it, they don't have to come.' he would say."

--From Betsy Bloomingdale's remembrance of openly gay actor and interior designer Billy Haines, in the October issue of Vanity Fair

"Foreign law is ... likely to affect [Supreme Court justice Anthony] Kennedy's positions on gay rights.... But foreign traditions of tolerance for homosexual activity have not led to broad international support for gay marriage; only Belgium, Canada, Spain, and the Netherlands currently permit gay people to wed. That does not seem like the kind of mandate that Kennedy will feel compelled to join."

--From an article by Jeffrey Toobin in the September 12 issue of The New Yorker

"[California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger] is not faced with a question of legal interpretation. He is faced with a question of principle. He should sign the [equal marriage] bill because it is the right thing to do. The million-plus gay and lesbian citizens of California should not have to prove the humanity and dignity of their relationships in every new election cycle,"

--From an op-ed column by Tobias Barrington Wolff in the Los Angeles Times, September 10