Vexillography is a very big word! Vexillography is really the high science and art and understanding of flags and their history - the academic word for flag making and heraldry.

Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible - to live in the truth, as I say - to get out of the lie.

When I was young, they thought I was from outer space. I was the only gay person they probably knew, and they struggled with that. Everybody knew I was gay. They just didn't want to talk about it.

It's not so easy to be gay or even a woman in some places in the world, and in many countries, it's illegal to be gay. You can be put to death. It's a global struggle. A human rights struggle on a global scale.

We Americans are world leaders and we must lead by example - particularly in times that require careful deliberation before any precipitous action - lest we fail to walk in the shoes of those we might injure.

But romantic vision can also lead one away from certain very hard, ugly truths about life that are important to know.

No president can amend the past, and the public is tired of candidates who simply point fingers instead of offering their own solutions. They want a leader who will describe the threats as they are and rally the country behind a strategy to defeat them.

We have one authority and one law and everyone has the responsibility to follow that law and that authority.