[Henry Rios, with Kevin Reilly] "Sometimes I can't believe what people do to each other." "Believe it," he said. "There's nothing that hasn't been do… - Michael Nava

The Abbey was on Robertson, just below Santa Monica, on the edge of Boys' Town. Low brick buildings housed cafes, clothing stores, coffee houses and watch repair shops that rubbed elbows with gay clubs and sex shops. These establishments catered to hordes of the beautiful young gay men who lived in the big apartment complexes that lined the side streets or who drove in from all over Southern California on weekend nights. I seldom ventured there, because it reminded me of San Francisco in the '70s, when I was a boy just coming out and how out of place I'd felt among the big-muscled boys who cruised each other with cold assessment. Twenty years later, only the faces and the clothes had changed; the air was still charged with the brutal calculation of lust. And beneath that was the claustrophobia of a ghetto, of fearful people looking out at the world from behind invisible fences.

[Jorge Luis] "It is my nature to love other men, Miguel. That may disgust you, but that night I decided I would no longer allow it to disgust me. It no longer does. I am at peace with myself." "Once I made that decision," Luis continued, "remarkable events occurred."

We must also again emphasize that gays and lesbians do not seek the right to be homosexual. This "right" is not one within the authority of government to give. They are fighting for the right to secure the conditions under which they may lead ordinary, civilized lives.