Dec 30, 2005   | COMMENTS     

Stout, an Ohio native who received a Purple Heart after being wounded in Iraq. Stout wanted to return to duty as an openly gay man (AP, April 15)

“Whether it is gay marriage, homosexual adoption, hate crimes laws including gays or the attempt to introduce a homosexual normalizing curriculum into our schools, all of these efforts should be ruthlessly opposed. The existence of our culture depends on it … The attack [on the Atlanta lesbian bar the Otherside Lounge in 1997] was meant to send a powerful message in protest of Washington’s continued tolerance and support for the homosexual political agenda … I make no apologies.”

Eric Rudolph, in a statement he wrote when pleading guilty to several bombings, including at the Otherside Lounge, the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta and abortion clinics in Alabama and Georgia (Washington Blade, April 15)

“At the end of the day, I am sure that all the people who are affected by your actions will walk away stronger. Eric, I am going to pray for you … God bless you.”

Beverly McMahon and Dana Ford, former owners of the Otherside Lounge, in a joint statement they read at Rudolph’s sentencing hearing, where he received four life terms (Washington Blade, Aug. 26)

“We seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that’s been on the news, and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception [that] … judges are making political decisions, yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people e