quote of the day

"I began to understand, even in grammar school, that somehow I was profoundly different.

No one comes up to you and tells you you're African American, or Jewish American, or Irish American. You discover your gay by yourself. And I was going to the public library and looking for 'What is homosexuality?' and what are it's origins and how is it described.

Well it was all horrific. It was apocalyptic, it was a curse.

I accepted all those messages of shame, and messages of hate, messages of ignorance. But you realize it's intrinsic. It's who and what you are. And so you deny this thing.

But what happens is it comes out. And it comes out in dark places. You begin to believe that it is shameful because your acting, for me, in shameful ways. I mean, where am I having sex? I'm having sex in back alleys of abandoned synagogues, I'm having sex in rest stops.

The fact is my straight friends were picking up their girlfriends in bars and at parties and doing it wherever. I didn't have that opportunity – to do it in public ways that were healthy, that were safe, and that were accepted. And so by doing it in secret, closeted ways, I believe it is unhealthy for the psychology, it is unhealthy for the being, and it is unhealthy for the soul."

– jim mcgreevy
former governor of new jersey