If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country.

Gay brothers and sisters... You must come out. Come out to your relatives... come out to your friends... Come out to your neighbors... to your fellow workers... to the people who work where you eat and shop... break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake. For the sake of the youngsters who are becoming scared.

Hope is never silent.

All men are created equal. Now matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about.

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

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 ask for the movement to continue, for the movement to grow, because last week I got a phone call from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and my election gave somebody else, one more person, hope. And after all, that's what this is all about. It's not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power - it's about giving those young people out there in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias, hope. You gotta give them hope.