I want to recruit you for the fight to preserve democracy from the John Briggs and Anita Bryants who are trying to constitutionalize bigotry…

 I ask my gay sisters and brothers to make the commitment to fight. For themselves, for their freedom, for their country…Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying silently in our closets…We are coming out. We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I’m going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out.  – Harvey Milk * San Francisco Gay Pride Parade of 1978