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

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.

Younger workers should have more freedom to build their retirement nest egg.

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.

Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press.

There are those, I know, who will reply that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is. It is the American Dream.

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, an opponent of law.

But in the first Gulf war the United Kingdom was not under any threat from Iraq, and is still less so in the second one. Then there is no justification for obstructing freedom of information, particularly as nations have a right to know what their soldiers are being used for.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

Into every soul, however purged and fenced, evil appears to have as much freedom of entrance as God Himself.

To stop terrorists before the strike, we must do three things: deny them entry into the country, curtail their freedom of action inside the country, and deprive them of material and moral support from within the country.

Love and freedom are vital to the creation and upbringing of a child.

Is anarchism desirable? Well, who does not seek freedom? What man, unless willing to declare himself in bondage, would care to call any control agreeable? Think about it!

American and Israel share a special bond. Our relationship is unique among all nations. Like America, Israel is a strong democracy, a symbol of freedom, and an oasis of liberty, a home to the oppressed and persecuted.

The transfer is a monumental occasion as the Iraqi people take control of their government and their future and forge ahead with creating a society governed by the tenets of life, liberty and freedom.

When people say 'What are underground comics?' I think the best way you can define them is just the absolute freedom involved... we didn't have anyone standing over us.

We must provide all kinds of freedom, personal and economic, to all Iraqis. I will fight for that.

There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.

Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the land that now constitutes the United States. They have helped develop the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and separation of powers that form the foundation of the United States Government.

In America it's live by the sword of freedom of expression and be will to die by it as well.