You cant not be changed by the experience of seeing extreme poverty. You start to want to think about ways in which you can make the world better.

I think it is important for someone like me to not run away from who I am but embrace it. LGBT people across the country need to know they have a friend in Congress.

I taught high school English for 24 years. I always teach my students to appreciate the beauty of language and to write poetically.

We, as Americans, do our level best to avoid being cruel to one another; we're led out of a diverse nation to come together and learn how to live with one another in a way that elevates everyone and our way of life. We've tried mightily to renew and imagine - imagine anew what it means to be free, what it means to be fair.

Interracial marriages were basically legalized, but nevertheless, there was a social stigma attached to them for a long time to come. I imagine that's going to be true for same-sex marriages - that people's emotional comfort level with it will not fully materialize for decades.

I hope that by just being a competent member and expressing informed views on issues that aren't related to issues of LGBT equality, Republicans see me as a general asset.

It's common sense to be for middle-class tax cuts and tax cuts on small businesses, to be for not allowing Medicare to be turned into voucher care.

As someone who is both an ethnic minority and openly gay, I often talk about how simply being who I am has given me a double awareness of the vulnerability that some Americans may be facing.

You can't not be changed by the experience of seeing extreme poverty. You start to want to think about ways in which you can make the world better.

The model that I'd always seen as a little boy, as a teenager, as I watched other political careers, I saw people who'd start off in local government, gain experience, move to state government, and then on to federal office. I'd always believed that kind of experience was important.