Whoopi's tough love: has been a friend of gays since she first hit Broadway. Now she's back onstage, speaking her mind.

"Every time the world gets in this shape, I do another show," quips Whoopi Goldberg. We're talking about her current Broadway gig, Whoopi: The 20th Anniversary, an updated version of the one-woman show that made Goldberg a star two decades ago. Back then, when Reagan was riding high, Goldberg was a razor-sharp observer who championed gay rights. She still is, but she's so famous now that during this year's presidential race, conservatives built distaste for her into their campaign strategy. The Advocate spoke with Goldberg about her 2004.

How would you describe your year?

I would describe it as eye-opening.

What's it like to go out there and look at an audience now as opposed to when you did it 20 years ago?

Well, I'm older, and so I have to keep the energy level up. It's kind of a physical show, and for an hour and a half I'm talkin' and movin' and groovin' and pontificating. Sometimes I think, I'm too fuckin' old for this!

You got scapegoated in this election; so did gay people. How does it feel to be singled out for speaking your mind?

I actually didn't speak my mind, which is what makes it all the sillier. What I said is so banal that you would go, "Much ado about nothing." Then to have gay folks tell Margaret Cho that she was disinvited from perforating at [a Democratic campaign-related] function just because she might "pull a Whoopi" really pissed me off. Particularly because they didn't know what "a Whoopi" was. Nobody did. Even if you go online now, you can't find what I said, because if you actually printed what I said, there'd be no story.

In reviewing your show, a couple of critics basically wrote, "[The character] Fontaine is really talking about Whoopi's political views, and they're old news."

I love that everybody feels they know what my views are. Because no one's ever actually asked me what I thought about a myriad of things.... If anyone's interested, they might ask, "How do you feel about gun control?" I'd say, "Well, as a gun owner, I would like to see something to help the police out there, but I'm not going to give up my gun because I need it." I also believe in the death penalty, but I think you have to use it judiciously--and that would get me in trouble with a lot of people who think I'm this other way.

The big election news to gays is that a lot of people would rather do anything than see us get married--do you have any words of advice or wisdom for us?

I say if they went to that much trouble to make sure you don't get married, how much trouble are they going to go to to get you out of schools? Where is this leading? What does the big picture hold for gay folks? I don't think it's a good picture. I think it's reminiscent of things that we have seen in the past. And instead of it being the Jews, it may become the gay folks.

I'm not saying to the extreme that it happened in Germany, but I do believe that--regardless of how nice people are about the gay television characters--now that this "moral belief' is out there that people can control your life, they're going to make decisions about where you can teach, where you can live, how you can live. Does it open you up for folks coming up to your door and saying, "I know I'm not going to get in trouble for beating the fuck out of you, so here I go"?

I'm sure somebody else interviewing you would say, "That's really paranoid. None of that's going to happen."

That's what the people in Germany said too. I'm not saying it will, but this is the first time I can't say it won't. I could always say, "That would never happen here--everything's come too far." Now I couldn't say in my gut that the dismantling of gay fights is not on their agenda.

People say that Hollywood--meaning you--is out of step with the rest of the country. Do you think that's true?

I have family all over the country, so I don't think I'm out of step with the country. I read something written about me--because the comment was made by Mr. Kent that I'm part of what the country represents. ]This writer] said, "No, that's not true." I thought, How dare you? You think I'm not concerned about jobs and what my family has to go through to keep food on their table? You think I'm going to support everybody? Not You think I'm not worried about the education of my grandkids? They go to public schools! A lot of those issues I don't have to worry about, but a lot of issues I do. I can't speak for Hollywood--I'm not Hollywood, I live in New York. So I can speak for me.

Anything you want to say that I forgot to ask?

[In the next four years] we just have to keep our eyes open and make sure that we're aware of everything going on around us. And that's how we'll get through it.