I'm grateful for my brokenness. I'm grateful for my humility.

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

For me, living in the closet corroded my ability to have an honest, open relationship with my God, my loved ones, my constituency and myself.

I realized that my truest passion was for helping people change through faith in a higher power. That meant, for me, belonging to the church. Using my abilities to bring Christian doctrine to a postmodern world.

Being gay is a fundamental part of my being - the core of who I've always been, and the thing that I had repressed and run from all my life.

Civil union is less than marriage. Marriage is a sacred and valued institution and ought to be afforded equal protection.

When I came out publicly, some photo editors had a field day searching for pictures of me with a limp wrist or some other stereotypical gay signifier - as though, after decades in the public eye, they'd suddenly come across a trove of shots where I looked like a Cher impersonator.