My own early crusade for same-sex marriage, for example, is now mainstream gay politics. It wasn't when I started.

I do not believe that the truth can ever be in conflict with God.

It is one of history's great tragedies that American conservatism, born in part in resistance to Soviet torture, should end by endorsing it in America, by Americans.

I think essentially corrupting institutions in Washington are turning conservatism into something that is really very creepy, but also emotionally and psychically powerful for people.

What gay culture is before it is anything else, before it is a culture of desire or a culture of subversion or a culture of pain, is a culture of friendship.

The important things are not worth knowing because they are useful. They are worth knowing because they are true.

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