• “The police department’s most senior chaplain is retiring amid controversy over whether he used a slur when referring to a gay prosecutor.”

  -- Associated Press

• “Mr. Kalaidjian used an anti-gay slur to refer to Thomas Hickey.”

  -- New York Times

• “Kalaidjian . . . said, ‘Whoops, I almost called him what he is, that fag.’”

  -- Daily News

• “The reverend . . . would not say whether he used the slur.”

  -- Newsday

• “I should have just called him a jerk, but yes, I did use the word fag.”

  -- New York Post

• “I have a problem with anybody who uses a derogatory racial, sexual, or ethnic comment.”

  -- Police Commissioner Howard Safir

• “If you call anybody a fag or a faggot, that’s just a term guys use. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  -- William Kalaidjian

• “I have said it both to my cousin Nick and my late uncle Hughey . . . both gay.”

  -- New York Post’s Steve Dunleavy

Related:

• Archive: “Gotham: Life in the New City”
• Table of Contents: May 18, 1998 issue of New York | Subscribe!