There's no question that the gay movement would not be as far along as it is without AIDS. But how can there be any other issue in the face of death, possible extinction?

Saying someone is gay who is gay no longer constitutes defamation or slander or libel. You cannot defame someone by telling the truth.

I now realize that I am a gay man before anything else. Other gays may think they're a Jew first, or black, or a banker, but I'm gay.

I think being gay and gay people are the most wonderful things in the world. I wish all of us could have the power and pride to benefit from what is rightfully ours. Why isn't there an enormous building in Washington called the 'National Association of Lesbian and Gay Concerns' to lobby for us?

I came from Yale, where you get an extracurricular degree in self-importance because you went there. When AIDS happened, I was treated like an outcast. And I don't like that feeling.

You'd think one day we'd learn. You don't get anything unless you fight for it, united and with visible numbers. If ACT UP taught us anything, it taught us that.

I think Ed Koch is the person most responsible for allowing AIDS to get out of control. It happened here first, on his watch. If he had done what any moral human being should have done in the beginning, and put out alarms, then a lot fewer people would have gotten sick.