I'm on the board of a national group called Faith in America. It's designed to fight religious-based bigotry.

At different points in my life, I had grappled with the idea of going into the priesthood - in high school or law school. Where it ends, I'm not quite sure. Perhaps it ends with death, grappling with one's spirituality.

I'm enjoying prison ministry, particularly with the women in Hudson County Jail who have suffered tremendously in their lives.

I try to be grateful for the abundance of the blessings that I have, for the journey that I'm on and to relish each day as a gift.

Of all my false identities, the strategies in my campaign to be accepted, being a sworn Republican is the hardest to explain. In my later political life, I can only be described as a Kennedy Democrat, eager to pursue equitable treatment for the least fortunate.

My truth is that I am a gay American.

No relief was forthcoming from my then-Catholic faith, which said the practice of homosexuality was a 'mortal sin' subject to damnation.