for being a gay American but rather for having let personal feelings impact my decision-making.

For this is an intensely personal decision and not one typically for the public domain, ... Yet, it cannot and should not pass.

It wasn't much of a decision, ... If someone is upset about (the gay love story) it's their problem. We really, truly don't care.

The arc of American history almost inevitably moves toward freedom. Whether it's Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, the expansion of women's rights or, now, gay rights, I think there is an almost-inevitable march toward greater civil liberties.

Being gay is a fundamental part of my being - the core of who I've always been, and the thing that I had repressed and run from all my life.

When I came out publicly, some photo editors had a field day searching for pictures of me with a limp wrist or some other stereotypical gay signifier - as though, after decades in the public eye, they'd suddenly come across a trove of shots where I looked like a Cher impersonator.