The most successful marriages, gay or straight, even if they begin in romantic love, often become friendships. It's the ones that become the friendships that last.

I think there were two great gay Americans obviously, and that was Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman.

All s, like all human beings, get many things wrong. Ronald Reagan's extraordinary achievement as of the U.S. was to succeed in getting the two biggest challenges of his time right: defeating the Soviet Union and reviving the American economy and spirit. Neither of those achievements was inevitable. Both were fiercely opposed at the time. But he persisted; his visionary focus matched only by a gentleness of character and a brilliance of rhetoric.

Although I never publicly defended promiscuity, I never publicly attacked it. I attempted to avoid the subject, in part because I felt, and often still feel, unable to live up to the ideals I really hold.

Leftists would like to pretend that any criticism of their views raises the specter of domestic repression. But in a country with a First Amendment, no suppression from government is likely, and in the citadels of the media and the academy, the far left is actually vastly overrepresented.

The Dixiecrats meet again in New York. Now they're called Republicans.

When I first started talking about gay marriage, most people in the gay community looked at me as if I was insane or possibly a fascist reactionary.