And then there are guys like the Marine who told me: "I'm not gay, I just like a dick up my ass every once in a while"…

With this thinking, gay means you like the Tony Awards?

Hmmm. Anyone else seem to remember a large social movement for equality that reached a conclusion that went something like . . . "the personal is political"?

That's why HIV prevention groups use MSMs (men who have sex with men) as the demographic category, or at least one of the reasons. MSM embraces people who identify as gay (apart, I suppose, from the celibate ones), but also includes people who don't socially identify as gay.

I attribute most of this to repression.

wouldnt some one who has same sex sex, then goes to opposite sex sex, be BI?

and once you come out, i'd say your involved in it politically.

Homosexuality is not a preference.

Must all gays conform to the same politics? To use an analogy with the black community, Clarence Thomas has been told that he doesn't fit because of his politics, so is he not "black." Or Barack Obama, when he lost an election in Chicago against an incumbent black congressman, was told he was not "black" enough.

Lord knows, I have some warped views on politics and human rights which basically boil down to whatever goes on in my back yard involves me; however, I think if you stand up for equal rights for all (in this case gays/lesbians) then your politics are close enough to the rest of us when it comes to human rights issues.

What an idiotic quote. Gay = Homosexual, period.

The only "preference" involved in being gay is chosing to be happy or miserable.

I HATE the term "sexual preference."

Geez, I wish some gay activists would stop using AIDS to play the pity card for our community. The simple fact is that AIDS is NOT a condition of gay or bisexual men. No disease or medical condition has the ability to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or sexual feelings.

As for the word "preference", it is frequently mis-used by some gay activists. These activists need to be reminded that sexual preference refers to whether you like men with hairy chests, bald heads etc. A heterosexual man might have a preference for blondes with big boobs.

From Angels in America: Roy Cohen says, I'm not a homosexual. Homosexuals have no clout. I'm a heterosexual who fools around with guys. (Not direct quote).

I have some sympathy for this quote 'cause it concerns Mexico where conditions are stark. But for me, gay/homosexual and all of the other terms are beside the point. Homosexual is descriptive of sexual orientation. That's good enough for me.