Tell you what, if there were gays in the army 'Saving Private Ryan' would have been a hell of a lot shorter film. There is no way it would take gay men three hours to find Matt Damon.
If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void: lobbyists and special interests; the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election and those who are making it harder for you to vote; Washington politicians who want to decide who you can marry, or control health care choices that women should make for themselves.
It's none of my business what somebody's [orientation is]. Now when somebody makes it my business, like on gay marriage, I'm going to stand up and say I don't support gay marriage. I support marriage between men and women.
There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last respect a rather common one.
My family spent many years sleeping side by side in the same room. It's important for me to not separate myself from them or to say that I've suffered more than they have because I'm gay. We all suffered from the same political rejection, and from poverty. When you're starving with eleven other people in the same room, you become connected to them forever. We were all hungry at the same time.
Does the mainstream media have a liberal bias? On a couple of things, maybe. Compared to the American public at large, probably a slightly higher percentage of journalists, because of thier enhanced power of discernment, realize they know a gay person or two, and are, therefore, less frightened of them.
Our politics at its best involves us recognizing ourselves in each other. And our politics at its worst are when we see immigrants or women or blacks or gays or Mexicans as somehow separate, apart from us.
We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are - whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary (Clinton) mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.
Who cares if it's a campaign strategy, and who are other people to say it's ridiculous? I'm not gay, but I strongly support gay marriage. What if someone told you you couldn't marry the one you love? I think it's about time! Let people who love each other that are the same sex get married. They deserve the right to be happy also.
I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying.
I was reminded that it is my obligation not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society, but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided.