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I was homophobic because I obviously didn't know that I was gay.

Originally I was opposed to gay assimilation and targeted gay marriage as just another effort on the part of gays to resemble their straight neighbours.

My being gay was something of not great interest to me.

I was a closet straight. I think I wanted to be gay because I thought it was arty and interesting. And also, I was phenomenally shy with girls.

Personally speaking, growing up as a gay man before it was as socially acceptable as it is now, I knew what it was to feel different, to feel alienated and to feel not like everyone else. But the very same thing that made me monstrous to some people also empowered me and made me who I was.

I'm not homophobic.

When I was I younger I didn't want to be gay. Not because I was scared of the sexual thing; I didn't want to be a clone. Now this was in the late '70s.

There's still a tremendous amount of homophobia in our culture. It's regrettable, it's stupid, it's heartless, and it's immoral, but there it is.

Homophobia is just that: a phobia.

People who were gay were pitied and ridiculed by my parents - they had no modern sense of people being allowed to be who they were.