“Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination.”

The organizers and perpetuators of segregation are as much the enemy of America as any foreign invader.

The new ‘niggers’ are gays. It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change. The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people.

Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays.

My activism did not spring from being black…The racial injustice that was present in this country during my youth was a challenge to my belief in the oneness of the human family.

I would say that the black newspapers have played it very straight. If I was attacked they simply published that I was attacked.

Every indifference to prejudice is suicide because, if I don’t fight all bigotry, bigotry itself will be strengthened and, sooner or later, it will return on me.

Looking back at his career, Mr. Rustin, a Quaker, once wrote: ‘The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics; 2) constitutional means; 3) democratic procedures; 4) respect for human personality; 5) a belief that all people are one.’

God does not require us to achieve any of the good tasks that humanity must pursue. What God requires of us is that we not stop trying.

Loving your enemy is manifest in putting your arms not around the man but around the social situation, to take power from those who misuse it at which point they can become human too.

I don’t want to seem intolerant to them and I think we have to say that to them with a great deal of affection, but remaining in the closet is the other side of the prejudice against gays. Because until you challenge it, you are not playing an active role in fighting it.

Twenty-five, 30 years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States were black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves gay, homosexual, lesbian.

You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.

Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.

I am an opponent of war and of war preparations and an opponent of universal military training and conscription; but entirely apart from that issue, I hold that segregation in any part of the body politic is an act of slavery and an act of war.

The proof that one truly believes is in action.

I would say except when I have been attacked the black community has seldom seen fit to even mention the gay aspect. And since when I have been attacked I have usually been defended by the black community,

When I came out, when I was 17 years old, it was one of those things where I realized that there was going to be so many obstacles, but being gay doesn’t mean being weak. And being gay doesn’t mean that you are less than anybody else. It’s just who you are.

Just because you’re gay, I won’t turn you away. If you stick around, I’m sure we can find some common ground.

The world is less homophobic, depending on where you are in the world…

I think if the world were a fair and just place, there wouldn’t even need to be a gay label.

I am invisible in gay bars.

When I was 14 I came very close to becoming a gay teen suicide ‘statistic’ but I then turned to music, my piano, my loved ones, and discovered that it does in fact get better.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we lived in a world where no one thought being gay was even something to ride someone about?

No, I’m not gay. And I think it would be a waste with all those pretty girls in the front row.