Andrew Sullivan

When you put a tiny and despised minority up for a popular vote, the minority usually loses.

What gay culture is before it is anything else, before it is a culture of desire or a culture of subversion or a culture of pain, is a culture of friendship.

I enjoy being around people who disagree with me; and I enjoy being in non-political contexts and activities.

When I first started talking about gay marriage, most people in the gay community looked at me as if I was insane or possibly a fascist reactionary.

Although I never publicly defended promiscuity, I never publicly attacked it. I attempted to avoid the subject, in part because I felt, and often still feel, unable to live up to the ideals I really hold.

If you are a gay couple living in Alabama, you know one thing: your family has no standing under the law; and it can and will be violated by strangers.

I actually bought the argument that if we democratized Iraq, we could create a space for venting some of the stuff that's going on in the Middle East in these autocratic regimes that is expressing itself through jihadism, because it has nowhere else to express itself.

When I was about eight, I asked my mother if it was true that God knows everything about you. When she answered yes, I said, 'Then there's no hope for me, Mum.'

Homophobia the fear that another man will treat you like you treat women.

I purge compulsively. I'm constantly shedding things.

Anything that raises any internal honesty about gay life is inherently suspect.

I can barely remember what I wrote yesterday, let alone 10 years ago.

Homosexuality is like the weather. It just is.

There is something about hearing your president affirm your humanity that you don't know what effect it has until you hear it.

How can you tell when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion?

The good news about me is that my friends and social network is entirely independent of politics.

I think if someone is writing continuously for 10 years and has not changed their mind about something - there's something wrong with them. They're not really thinking.

Al Gore's problem, in my view, is that he never liked politics. He's actually deeply uncomfortable in it but felt he had to do it because of his father. He's much more comfortable in a private sector role and has, in fact, been much more successful in a private sector role, and I admire him for that.

Homophobia whether internalized or externalized is really fear its not hatred its fear. Its fear of the truth about ourselves.

In many ways, my attachment to human freedom was completely compatible with my right to live freely as a homosexual.

The dirty little secret of journalism is that it really isn't a profession, it's a craft. All you need is a telephone and a conscience and you're all set.

The relationship of black Americans to Obama is sociologically riveting.

We've got fuel prices coming down and good travel numbers coming out, so it's not surprising airline stocks are going up.

I've always been a pretty candid person. I'm not a very secretive person; I'm not a very discreet person. One of my best friends once described me as pathologically indiscreet.

My own early crusade for same-sex marriage, for example, is now mainstream gay politics. It wasn't when I started.

The most successful marriages, gay or straight, even if they begin in romantic love, often become friendships. It's the ones that become the friendships that last.

Well, in the past, the size of government was one of the more fundamental dividing lines between Right and Left. The Right was supposed to represent the small government philosophy - limited spending, low taxes. Obviously, things have shifted.

The Dixiecrats meet again in New York. Now they're called Republicans.