I now realize that I am a gay man before anything else. Other gays may think they're a Jew first, or black, or a banker, but I'm gay.
I think being gay and gay people are the most wonderful things in the world. I wish all of us could have the power and pride to benefit from what is rightfully ours. Why isn't there an enormous building in Washington called the 'National Association of Lesbian and Gay Concerns' to lobby for us?
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses pride in the LGBTQ+ community and advocates for their rights and representation.
Larry Kramer passionately highlights the beauty and strength found within the gay community, emphasizing the need for greater recognition and advocacy for LGBTQ+ issues. He suggests that society should celebrate and empower gay individuals by establishing official representation, indicating that the absence of such advocacy structures reveals a significant oversight in addressing their rights and concerns. The quote calls for unity and pride within the community, pushing for societal acknowledgment and support.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a Pride event, to inspire unity and encourage advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights.
More from Larry Kramer
All quotes βAIDS is a plague - numerically, statistically and by any definition known to modern public health - though no one in authority has the guts to call it one.
The most important fact is that gays have been here since day one. To say otherwise is a gross denial and stupidity. We played an enormous part in the history of America.
We didn't exist. Ronald Reagan didn't say the word 'AIDS' until 1987. I've tried desperately to get a meeting in the White House; Gay Men's Health Crisis is already an established organization. I have a certain presence.
AIDS was allowed to happen. It is a plague that need not have happened. It is a plague that could have been contained from the very beginning.
I was at Yale from 1953 to 1957, and I tried to commit suicide in my freshman year because I was gay, and I thought I was the only person in the school who was. I was just totally and utterly miserable.
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Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians than praying together. Never do they love one another so well as when they witness the outpouring of each other's hearts in prayer.
If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone?
Whenever you tell a group of people that they can't use bathrooms, or they can't access spaces that other people use, that is dehumanizing. It is discriminatory, and it reinforces the stigma and the prejudices that the transgender community already faces.
As for becoming queen, it was never on the forefront of my mind when I married my husband. It was a long way off, that thought.
All black women aren't sassy, loud, difficult, or subservient. We are, in fact, very complex and very diverse, living very complex and diverse lives. That point cannot be made enough.
Not afraid of poverty and drabness and who is untouched by it, untouched by the drunkenness of her friends; (she) who judges, selects, discards people with severity, who knows, when she is telling her endless anecdotes, that they are ways of escape, keeping herself all the more secret behind that profuse talk.