I was an older brother. So I had to do a lot of things first. My father was a self-made man, and he would beat me senseless. But he was a Scotsman, and stubborn. I'm his son, and I'm stubborn, too. I go on being stubborn.
Harry HayThe moment you say, "We are proud. I'm proud to be this, and I'm proud to be that," what you're saying is we're almost as good as the others. "Almost" always means not quite.
Harry HayThe police had a practice of entrapping people. This was done all over the country, but we had a particularly vicious group here in Southern California because of the Hollywood situation. They knew they could get a lot of them. They were shaking down people for thousands in blackmail.
Harry HayOut of the mists of our long oppression, / We bring love for ourselves and each other, / And love for the gifts we bear, /So heavy and so painful the fashioning of them, /So long the road given us to travel them. A separate people, /We bring a gift to celebrate each other, /โTis a gift to be gay! / Feel the pride of it!
Harry Hay