You know what’s weird? I never really think of Mariah Carey as a big gay diva icon. Like, I think of Cher, Barbra Streisand, Liza, Judy Garland, even Celine Dion as the definitive divas that the gays flock to – but Mariah is up there, isn’t she? Why shouldn’t she be? She’s got the voice, she’s got the crazy costumes, the over-the-top makeup, and the whole “butterfly” fetish – she’s a drag act waiting to happen. Anyway, Mariah is interviewed in the new issue of The Advocate, and she talks about bullying, gay marriage, and whether she secretly dreams of having a gay son:

Her message to young victims of antigay bullying:
It’s horrible that it’s almost 2011 and this is still going on, but I don’t want to get on my podium and say, “Just keep believing!” – I know that’s cliché, and it would be typical of me to say something like that. It’s almost impossible to say anything, really, except you must be aware that dealing with that in high school is a passing place. You have to stay strong, rely on your true friends, and try to get through it, as opposed to drowning in it. Look at how many people suffered during high school and came out of it a better, stronger adult. That’s the thing to focus on.

On gay marriage:
If two people want to get married, it’s their prerogative — we hope. Everybody should be able to do what they want to do and be in the pursuit of happiness. Ever since I was a little girl, my mother was very open-minded and had many different types of friends, so being gay never seemed wrong or strange to me. Her best friends were a gay couple, Ernie and Mort, and they kind of co-raised me. They were the nicest guys ever, and they would watch my little shows when I’d sing. Today, I guess they’d be called my guncles. Sometimes they’d put us up when we didn’t have a place to go. I couldn’t wait to go stay at their house because it was so beautifully done.

How might you and Nick handle it if your child turned out to be gay?
I guess we’d handle it as best we could in terms of being supportive.

You strike me as one of those people who might secretly hope for a gay son.
[Laughs] I just hope for whoever’s going to be happy and that I can be a great mother to.

On having a lesbian daughter who won’t wear Mariah’s tight hand-me-down dresses and butterfly jewelry:
No comment. [Laughs] No, the thing is that you can’t try to make somebody something they’re not. Everybody’s like, “Oh, if she has a girl, everything’s going to be pink, blah, blah, blah.” But I don’t think you should go totally overboard on that. You should wait and see what the child wants.

On bisexual rumors:
If it makes somebody happy to say that, then whatever, but that’s not the reality. I don’t have a discriminatory policy of who I’m friends with, so yes, I’m friends with women who are gay – gay, straight, it doesn’t matter to me. So I don’t get upset when I hear that, because it is what it is. I guess I could lie about it to seem more exciting.

On the rumor that Lindsay Lohan tried to seduce her:
No, but I have hung out with her at a club. She was with Sean Lennon, and they came over. I remember he was playing my Hello Kitty guitar, and we were all just singing, laughing, and making up songs. It really couldn’t have been more innocent.

On Burlesque being the new Glitter:
I haven’t seen it, and I don’t feel like sitting in a movie theater right now. I can barely lay in bed and be comfortable. First, I’m going to go see Elf, the Broadway musical, because I’m very focused on my Christmas music moment. But maybe I’ll see it when it comes out on DVD.

On turning her Christmas songs into a musical:
It definitely wouldn’t be about my life; start that rumor and they’ll never lose it, so make sure people know it’s not about my life. Right now we’re working on finding a script. We’ve been in discussions with HBO for over three years now. Everybody’s been very supportive of the project, but nobody wants to accept a script that’s not amazing. Anybody out there reading this who’s a writer or writer-in-training, we’re definitely accepting different ideas right now. Because it’s so important to me, I don’t want to make a mistake and have the script not be as good as the music. I want the script to be better than the music. … A long time ago, the first idea I had was for it to be on Broadway and hopefully become a perennial. Then we spoke with HBO and got into discussions about making a movie musical. So it wouldn’t be a TV movie, because it’s not TV, it’s HBO.

Last year you made magic with filmmaker Lee Daniels in Precious, and now you’ve created another holiday miracle with Marc Shaiman. Not to detract from their talent, but is there something special about gay men that makes them a perfect creative match for you?
I mean, how could I say that there’s not? I can’t generalize too much because straight people I work with will be like, “Well, what does that say about me?” But it is true that there’s a certain chemistry there. Yes, their talents are gigantic, but they’re also open-minded, and it’s all about the shared references. I really clicked with Marc when we wrote our first song together, “Christmas Time Is in the Air Again,” because our references were so similar. His are way deeper than mine in terms of standards and older Broadway stuff, but he was surprised that I knew old standards that most people don’t know, because my mom would sing them when I was really little. And Lee’s another one that you just can’t help but love. He’s got his own unique personality, and we share so many of the same references as well. I can’t even think of all the crazy things we quote and laugh about.

[From The Advocate]

See, she’s down with the gays. So why don’t I have the association of Mariah and a gay fan base in my mind? Is it my problem, or does she just treat all of her fans equally, gay or straight, they are all her beautiful butterflies?

Also: I am enjoying SO MUCH how Mariah is already plotting to get herself a really girly daughter. She’s already got a plan to ease her potential daughter into the pink stuff, by not overexposing a girl into too much girly stuff right away. Mariah has given this some thought!

Photos courtesy of WENN.