The isolation that was so much a part of the city's psyche, the feeling that its ten million people were all living parallel lives that never interse… - Michael Nava

Everywhere, he saw the symptoms of starvation as one economic crisis after another was balanced on the backs of the poor, while the city's anxious rich hoarded their wealth or sent it out of the country for safekeeping in foreign banks.

The fact is that most gay men and women lead, or try to lead, ordinary lives indistinguishable from those of their neighbours.

This struggle is not about sex. It is about privacy, individuality, and civil equality and the right of all Americans, not just gay and lesbian Americans, to be free.