Harry Hay quotes
-
“Out of the mists of our long oppression, / We bring love for ourselves and each other, / And love for the gifts we bear, /So heavy and so painful the fashioning of them, /So long the road given us to travel them. A separate people, /We bring a gift to celebrate each other, /’Tis a gift to be gay! / Feel the pride of it!”
-- Harry Hay -
“The assimilationist movement is running us into the ground.”
-- Harry HaySource : "Ever the Warrior / Gay rights icon Harry Hay has no patience for assimilation" by Dan Levy, www.sfgate.com. June 23, 2000.
-
“Confronted with the loving-sharing Consensus of subject-SUBJECT relationships all Authoritarianism must vanish. The Fairy Family Circle, co-joined in the shared vision of non-possessive love - which is the granting to any other and all others that total space wherein each may grow and soar to his own freely-selected, full potential - reaching out to one another subject-to-SUBJECT, becomes for the first time in history the true working model of a Sharing Consensus!”
-- Harry Hay -
“When we begin to love and respect Great Mother Nature's gift to us of gayness, we'll discover that the bondage of our childhood and adolescence in the trials and tribulations of neitherness was actually an apprenticeship for teaching her children new cutting edges of consciousness and social change. In stunning paradox, our neitherness is our talisman, our fairie wand, our gift we bring to the hetero world to....transform their pain into healings; ...transform their tears to laughter: ...transform their hand-me-downs to visions of loveliness.”
-- Harry Hay -
-
“Giving votes in exchange for ideological support. To wit: identity politics for homosexuals.”
-- Harry Hay -
“I condemn the national gay press for its emphasis on consumerism.”
-- Harry Hay -
“With the full realization that, in order to earn for ourselves any place in the sun, we must with perseverance and self-discipline work collectively for the full first-class citizenship participation of Minorities everywhere, including ourselves.”
-- Harry Hay -
“I always say to people, "If you share my dream, why don't we walk together?" And that's my only organizing tool.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: progressive.org
-
-
“I knew that I was gay in every bone of my body. So I did the only thing I could do. I started the movement.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: www.progressive.org
-
“The moment you say, "We are proud. I'm proud to be this, and I'm proud to be that," what you're saying is we're almost as good as the others. "Almost" always means not quite.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: progressive.org
-
“Up until I was eleven years old, I thought I was the only one of my kind in the world. I couldn't find anybody else who felt as I did.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: www.progressive.org
-
“Underneath that facade, I'm a terrified little sissy, just like everybody else. But I never let it show.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: www.progressive.org
-
-
“I'm not looking for a boyish girl. I'm looking for a boy. And I'm not looking for a girlish boy either.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: www.progressive.org
-
“I was accustomed to walking alone. I'd find other people who agreed with me, but they also said, "I wouldn't dare mention it." I was the only one who would say, "We've got to stand." And they said, "Well, yes. And after you make it safe, then I'll stand, too. But you have to make it safe."”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: www.progressive.org
-
“I've always felt I carried a golden secret, a wonderful secret. Every time I thought about it, it made me feel warm inside and good.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: www.progressive.org
-
“Ostracism means you don't exist at all. And that's a very difficult situation to live with. As gay people, we had been chasing ostracism by that point for probably 300 years. You just knew that you should have dropped into your black hole.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: www.progressive.org
-
-
“Assimilation is the way you excuse yourself. It absolutely never worked at all. You may not think you are noticeable. But they know who you are. They know you're a degenerate, and they've never forgotten that.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: www.progressive.org
-
“The police had a practice of entrapping people. This was done all over the country, but we had a particularly vicious group here in Southern California because of the Hollywood situation. They knew they could get a lot of them. They were shaking down people for thousands in blackmail.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: www.progressive.org
-
“A law is a law. It can be voted in. It can be voted out. It can be voted in and stay in as long as you have the majority. And where do you have the majority? You kid yourself.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: www.progressive.org
-
“I was an older brother. So I had to do a lot of things first. My father was a self-made man, and he would beat me senseless. But he was a Scotsman, and stubborn. I'm his son, and I'm stubborn, too. I go on being stubborn.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: www.progressive.org
-
-
“If you look into the history of fashion, you'll discover that Gernreich was the leading name for years and the leading fashion designer both here in the United States and internationally.”
-- Harry HaySource : Source: www.progressive.org
You may also like:
-
Barbara Gittings
Activist -
Carlton J. H. Hayes
Historian -
Edward Carpenter
Poet -
Frank Kameny
Protester -
Harvey Milk
Former San Francisco Supervisor -
James Broughton
Poet -
John Burnside
Writer -
Reverend Malcolm Boyd
Priest -
Rudi Gernreich
Fashion designer -
Vito Russo
Activist -
William Z. Foster
American Politician