There was no way to have a decent life and to be gay. So I was terrified that I was going to be caught, and I had already experienced quite a bit of bullying. And, you know, I just thought that only misery lay ahead, and that if I - when I got caught that would be the solution. I wish I could say that was a thing of the past. But, you know, it's not.

Cleve Jones

Categorized in : Past Gay Bullying

To all my friends in Los Angeles: the Sultan of Brunei, owner of the Beverly Hills Hotel, has signed legislation calling for gay people to be stoned to death.

Cleve Jones

beverly-hills gay people

During those days when you're exhausted and during those days when you're frustrated, during those days when you're being attacked by your own people for doing what you think is right, remember you're part of a progression that goes back a long time of ordinary people who are doing their best to make it a better world.

Cleve Jones

remembers-you remember-you thinking

If you tell me I can't understand you because of my color or you can't understand me because of your sexual orientation or she can't understand us because of her faith, well, if you can't have empathy how will you ever have solidarity?

Cleve Jones

solidarity empathy color

A movement that seeks to advance only its own members is going to accomplish little

Cleve Jones

members movement littles

Marches work, rallies work, civil disobedience works, direct action works, voting works, writing letters works, speaking to churches and schools works, rioting works.

Cleve Jones

direct-action writing school

I believe we are entering into a period of political chaos. Out of that chaos is the potential for great evil, but there is also the possibility of great good.

Cleve Jones

political evil believe

Even today every year we lose an awful lot of young people, teenagers, who take their own lives because they're - they are gay or transgender.

Cleve Jones

teenager gay years

I don't even want to go to the Pride marches anymore. The politics have been removed almost entirely. They're just huge corporate showcases.

Cleve Jones

march pride want

If I had to say what my one greatest achievement is, it's that I lasted, and I'm still happy. I hope that comes through.

Cleve Jones

greatest-achievement achievement stills

This is a terrible time to be young, I think. It's really hard.

Cleve Jones

terrible-times young thinking

I am tired of fighting state by state, county by county, city by city, for fractions of equality. I am tired of compromises and I am tired of the strategy that divides us from each other. It is time for us to unite across state boundaries in a truly nationwide movement to win full, actual equality, which can only come from the federal government. That's not my opinion. That's a fact.

Cleve Jones

tired fighting winning

People who say that violence doesn't accomplish anything have not read history. I don't celebrate that reality, but there you have it.

Cleve Jones

violence reality people

I think support of the straight community is very important and I think there has been a profound shift in public opinion seen reflected in many ways. We do not need straight people to speak for us but we do want straight people to stand with us.

Cleve Jones

profound people thinking

I am not proud to be gay any more than I am proud to be right handed or to breathe oxygen.

Cleve Jones

oxygen gay proud

A whole lot of the way identity politics has gone seems to me to deny empathy.

Cleve Jones

identity-politics empathy gone

Any social movement that seeks to benefit only its own members I think is a shallow movement and probably doomed to failure.

Cleve Jones

benefits movement thinking

Since the industrial revolution, cities, and especially the inner cities, were the places for the newly arrived. Voluntary immigrants seeking economic betterment, refugees, the bohemians, the artists - all of those people were crammed into densely populated neighborhoods and tenements. And as people climbed up the economic ladder they moved out, which really accelerated with the "white flight" phenomenon in the '60s and '70s.

Cleve Jones

artist cities white

I do believe that non-violent civil disobedience is a very important and useful tactic.

Cleve Jones

tactics important believe

The joy with which we denigrate each others' efforts, I hate that.

Cleve Jones

effort hate joy

Everybody will always find some way of diminishing your work, but it's all a lie!

Cleve Jones

lying way