A Quote by David C. Driskell

I remember an experience once of a young man in our home who was gay. We just assumed it, based on his outward appearance. Gay people had a hard time in those days, in fifties since the police would create situations to lock them up.
I've known gay people - men and women - since I was a young person. To me it's just naturalistic and realistic to portray gay characters in a humanistic light. As a young man, I knew enough gay people as people not to fear them. On the other side of the coin, I like to irritate conservatives and homophobes.
A lot of young people regard a threat against one person's sexual freedom as a threat against all of them, and that's absolutely how they should regard it. But it's heartening to look at the polls on young people on gay people, gay marriage, and sexual-freedom issues. They're terrific, and that's why the religious right is so desperately trying to lock in their current bare majority for prejudice: because their constituents are dying. They're losing votes every time the ambulance pulls up to the old folks' home. Let's hope it pulls up a little more frequently.
For the most part, it was never assumed that I was gay, and I've had people be sort of surprised that I was gay or act apologetic like they didn't know, which would just make me really uncomfortable. And I never had shame for it, but I never felt like introducing myself as, 'I'm Antoni. I'm gay. How are you?'
You're talking about the 1970s now and not the 1950s. We were all more sophisticated by that time, and I just assumed he was gay. But I do remember when we were all sitting around on a roof one night and Larry turned to me and said, "You do know I'm gay, don't you?" There was a statement made. A declaration. We just never had really talked about it.
Gay rights is just a matter of time. Look at the polls. Worrying about gay marriage, let alone gay civil unions or gay employment rights, is a middle-age issue. Young people just can't see the problem. At worst, gays are going to win this one just by waiting until the opposition dies off.
I would train with a gay man. As long as he respected me, it's all right. I don't think much of it. The fact that a guy is gay doesn't mean he's going to accost you. He can be gay, have a relationship, live among guys who aren't gay. He can do whatever he wants with his private life.
I've once gotten in trouble with certain gay activists because I'm not gay enough! I am a morose homosexual. I'm melancholy. Gay is the last adjective I would use to describe myself. The idea of being gay, like a little sparkler, never occurs to me. So if you ask me if I'm gay, I say no.
The ball scene was never really only gay people. I think people have this notion that if there's a man hanging around a gay man, he must be gay, but that's just stigma. Back in the day, it was the same; there were lots of different people there: gay, straight, whatever. They did not care what they were called because they knew who they were.
We ... tend to evaluate others on the basis of physical, outward appearance: their "good looks," their social status, their family pedigrees, their degrees, or their economic situations. The Lord, however, has a different standard by which he measures a person. When it came time to choose a king to replace King Saul, the Lord gave this criteria to his prophet Samuel: "Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; ... for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."
I've known I was gay since I was young, I think. And I mean young - like, young - like 5 or 6. I think most gay people or queer people know there's something different about them very early, but I didn't know what to call it.
As a gay writer and someone who began by writing autobiographical fiction, it's hard to get away from chatter of "You're just a narcissist," "You're just a gay man," "You're just looking for yourself in somebody else," "Why does your boyfriend look like you," a kind of baggage that you already have to create in the face of.
Is there something about the gay experience, being gay and the gay experience, that pushes us even more than other people toward competition?
When I meet gay kids and they know who we are, I remember that's amazing because literally every gay person in every gay story I knew growing up was doomed to die. There weren't any positive gay stories and it's incredible that has changed.
Honestly, I am hoping to influence young people, and Twitter's a great way to encourage them to lend their voice to the conversation. Any time you can show young people that you support gay friends and that there are gay people in the world who are lovely, happy, singing, and in love, it opens their minds.
My father tried to get me to be around gay people a lot when I was young. He owned a gay bookstore and it had a lot of gay literature and art books and he wanted me to be taken care of by the young gays and lesbians who worked for him.
I just want to be clear before we decide to do this together: I'm gay. My music is gay. My show is gay. And I love that it's gay. And I love my gay fans, and they're all going to be coming to our show. And it's going to remain gay.
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