Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight.

If I turned around every time somebody called me a faggot, I'd be walking backward - and I don't want to walk backward.

We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets.

It's not my victory, it's yours and yours and yours. If a gay can win, it means there is hope that the system can work for all minorities if we fight. We've given them hope.

Hope is never silent.

A reading of the Declaration of Independence on the steps of a building is widely covered. The events that started the American Revolution were the meetings in homes, pubs, on street corners.

All over the country, they're reading about me, and the story doesn't center on me being gay. It's just about a gay person who is doing his job.