I am not proud to be gay any more than I am proud to be right handed or to breathe oxygen.

When I was saving pills to kill myself, I thought there was no hope. I thought my life was over because I was a homosexual.

I saw great hope in the Sanders campaign - a flawed candidate, not perfect, but pretty damn close. Millions of young people were inspired by him.

If I had to say what my one greatest achievement is, it's that I lasted, and I'm still happy. I hope that comes through.

Since the industrial revolution, cities, and especially the inner cities, were the places for the newly arrived. Voluntary immigrants seeking economic betterment, refugees, the bohemians, the artists - all of those people were crammed into densely populated neighborhoods and tenements. And as people climbed up the economic ladder they moved out, which really accelerated with the "white flight" phenomenon in the '60s and '70s.

Even in my town, even in San Francisco, thousands of gay men were arrested usually using entrapment techniques every single year for sexual behavior between consenting adults. That continued well into the 1970s until it was finally decriminalized in 1976, I believe.

I am old school, I joined the gay liberation movement in 1972. If you had told me in 1972 that in the year 2009 I would be campaigning for the right to join the army or get married I think I would have started dating women at that time.