Outspoken: Jennifer Nettles, Dolly Parton and more…

“I guess you could say that I’m coming out tonight!”

— Country music icon Dolly Parton, who has at times been rumored to be gay despite her marriage to a man, presenting the GLAAD Award to NBC’s Robert Greenblatt, with whom she worked on “9 to 5.” (GLAAD.org, April 11)

“I feel like a ton, a weight, has been lifted. I don’t have to hide it anymore; I don’t have to be ashamed. There are times when I’m like, ‘Oh God, I’m literally coming out with this thing; I’m being open about it. What are people going to say?’ And then I have to encourage myself again. … Nobody can condemn me about it. There’s only one God.”

— Gospel singer DeJuaii Pace, of the Anointed Pace Sisters, who recently came out as a lesbian and appeared on the weight-loss show “Addicted to Food.” (TheRoot.com, April 2)

“We know that people from this period took funeral rites very seriously so it is highly unlikely that this positioning was a mistake. Far more likely is that he was a man with a different sexual orientation, homosexual or transsexual.”

Kamila Remisova Vesinov, lead archeologist on a project that discovered a male skeleton, dated to 2900-2500 BC, buried in a way usually reserved for women. (The Telegraph, April 6)

“Dudes! I could be wrong, but I think that to have a ‘gay caveman,’ you need a skeleton that is both gay and a caveman. And this ain’t either!”

John Hawks, an anthropology professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, joining other scientists in disputing reports of the “gay caveman.” Hawks argues the body is from the pre-Bronze era and there is not enough information to make conclusions about sexuality. (Madison.com, April 11)

 

Top photo: Jennifer Nettles of Atlanta superstar country group Sugarland (by Dana Tynan)