Putting words in Starbucks' mouth ... or cup, at least

Several weeks ago the ultra right-wing Concerned Women of America organization was shocked and offended to find a quote by gay author (and therefore a promoter of the homo-seck-shul agenda) Armistead Maupin printed on coffee cups at that Wal-Mart of cafeine pushers, Starbucks.

Throwing a collective hissy fit, the CWA began a campaign on it's web site under the hyperbolic and hysteric headline Starbucks Funds and Promotes Homosexual Activism. So what exactly was it that has the Concerned Biddies frothing more than a hyperactive capucino machine? According to the CWA, Starbucks "crossed the line for yet another customer when it placed a quote promoting homosexual activity on the back side of her coffee cup."

Oh gracious me! Pray tell Starbucks didn't print "Ten helpful hints for enjoying anal intercourse" on their cups!

Actually, the quote that has the biddies so concerned is this one (sheild your eyes, oh ye readers of delicate sensibilities!):

"My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short."

Wow! That's some scary stuff! The poor CWAer her originally found that quote on her cup is no doubt still recovering from the vapors!

Now just when that tempest in a styrofoam cup has died down, enter Baptist-run Baylor University in Texas. Seems the campus Starbucks there has pulled all the cups with Maupin's shocking quote on them, according to the Associated Press.

Ah, well. It is Texas. And it involves Baptists. So what can you expect?

Perhaps if Starbucks is going to continue its program of putting conversation-starting quotes on their coffee cups, I can offer a few more suggestions. Heaven knows they won't make the Baptists and the CWAers happy, but watching them go into fits of apolexy reading them will certainly give me plenty to converse about.

Here you go, Starbucks. Here's my suggestions for future quotes you may wish to use:

Lesbian and gay people are a permanent part of the American workforce, who currently have no protection from the arbitrary abuse of their rights on the job. For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law.
- Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr.

Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.
- Dorothy Parker, author and humorist

The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and three hundred sixty two admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision.
- Lynne Lavner, comedian

You know ... whenever some yahoo talks at me about how he hates the fact that Gays took a Perfectly Good Word and ruined it, I reply that what I hate is the way some people took a Perfectly Good Word like 'Family' and turned it into a code word for intolerance.
- Bruce Garrett, artist and software engineer

You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.
- Barry Goldwater, conservative Senator and one-time presidential candidate

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?
- Ernest Gaines, African-American author

You could move.
- Abigail Van Buren, "Dear Abby," in response to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood

Wouldn't it be great if you could only get AIDS from giving money to television preachers?
- Elayne Boosler, comedian

If Michelangelo had been straight, the Sistine Chapel would have been wallpapered.
- Robin Tyler, first openly gay comic in the U.S.

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.
- Harvey Fierstein, playwright and actor

I think extreme heterosexuality is a perversion.
- Margaret Mead, anthropologist

The fact is that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than any other reason. That, that my friends, is true perversion.
- Harvey Milk, slain San Francisco City Supervisor at a 1978 Gay
Pride Rally

It is better to be hated for what one is than loved for what one is not.
- Andre Gide, French novelist

The only unnatural sex act is one which you cannot perform.
- Dr. Alfred Kinsey, pioneering sex researcher

Americans have a very low tolerance for differentness, whether it’s racial, ethnic or sexual. Despite our rhetoric about individualism, we are a desperately conforming people.
- Martin Duberman, gay historian

I wish that homosexuals were born with a little horn in the middle of their forehead so we couldn’t hide so easily. At least if you can’t hide, you have to stand up and fight.
- Harvey Fierstein, playwright and actor

Are homosexuals social outcasts? My God! Christopher Isherwood, Howard Brown, Merle Miller, Sidney Abbott, John Maynard Keynes. Are these people social outcasts? Some of the most moral men I know are homosexuals.
- Dr. Evelyn Hooker, psychologists and author of pioneering studies of homosexuality in the 1950s

The Air Force pinned a medal on me for killing a man and discharged me for making love to one.
- Former Air Force sergeant Leonard Matlovich

I have never come across anyone in whom the moral sense was dominant who was not heartless, cruel, vindictive, log-stupid, and entirely lacking in the smallest sense of humanity.
- Oscar Wilde, British playwright

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people whom we personally dislike.
- Oscar Wilde, British playwright

I’ve never outraged Nature. I’ve always listened to her advice and followed it wherever it went.
- Joe Orton, British playwright