I wish I had time to explain everything I did. Almost everything was done with an eye on the GLBT movement...last week I got a phone call from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and the voice was young, my election gave one more young person, hope

If you are not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities... the expression of love... then life itself loses its meaning.

We don't want sympathetic liberals, we want gays to represent gays... I represent the gay street people-the 14-year-old runaway from San Antonio. We have to make up for hundreds of years of persecution. We have to give hope to that poor runaway kid from San Antonio. They go to the bars because churches are hostile. They need hope! They need a piece of the pie!

I finally reached the point where I knew I had to become involved or shut up.

Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.

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

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