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

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

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

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.

Homosexuality is like the weather. It just is.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I purge compulsively. I'm constantly shedding things.

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.

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.

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

The relationship of black Americans to Obama is sociologically riveting.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

It's essential not to have an ideology, not to be a member of a political party. While the writer can have certain political views, he has to be careful not to have his hands tied.

There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.

Great ideology creates great times.

Faith in God's revelation has nothing to do with an ideology which glorifies the status quo.

For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

I like villains because there's something so attractive about a committed person - they have a plan, an ideology, no matter how twisted. They're motivated.

He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest.

Although, this is often used with negative connotations, I see ideology as an inherent part of culture.

Ideology... is indispensable in any society if men are to be formed, transformed and equipped to respond to the demands of their conditions of existence.

Those looking for ideology in the White House should consider this: For the men who rule our world, rules are for other people.

Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age.

Palestinian ideology has become a lethal cocktail of radical nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism.

Life has become the ideology of its own absence.

Ideology has very little to do with 'consciousness' - it is profoundly unconscious.

I believe there is little to gain by exchanging opinions with other artists concerning either the ideology of art or technical methods.

Notwithstanding the fact that the most innovative and progressive space we've seen - the Internet - has been the place where intellectual property has been least respected. You know, facts don't get in the way of this ideology.

Liberalism is a most important by-product of Rationalism, and its origins and ideology must be clearly shown.

However muted its present appearance may be, sexual dominion obtains nevertheless as perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power.

As a Christian, there is no other part of the New Right ideology that concerns me more than its self-serving misuse of religious faith.

Ostensibly rigorous and realistic, contemporary conservatism is an ideology of denial. Its symbol is a smile button.