[Image via NY Times]

AB: Along those lines, about HRC and the Task Force going out into the states, Obama's campaign has totally embraced Howard Dean's 50-state strategy. As we examine the 50-state strategy within Obama's campaign, we have to look at the Democratic National Committee's so-called "gay goals." That system is indirectly a child of the McGovern Commission, which revamped party rules in 1968. You were on the committee, you helped write the party’s rules – do you think the DNC should have set affirmative action quotas for gay people, or are the goals preferable?

DM: Well, first of all, Gandhi says we have to watch our words as much as our actions. No, I don't think they should have set quotas or affirmative action, but I do think that they need to make sure we have an inclusive party, that everyone has a voice in our party and is represented by what they bring to the table. And, you know, I also think that our national organizations – all of them – could have done a better job in working with local communities to help get delegates to the poor. For example, John Edwards didn't even get on the delegate ballot in my Congressional district in New York, because you need x-amount of figures. What a great opportunity, had we had a coordinated campaign, to run gay delegates for somebody and said, "Okay, we might pick up some delegates." I think our organizations missed the boat on delegate selection this year, I really do. I don't blame the DNC. I blame us.

AB: The DNC's current policy may not be perfect, but it does seem to be the most pragmatic. The biggest hurdle in my mind is getting local officials – and you're right, this is really on gay organizations – in Louisiana or Florida or where to embrace an inclusive party, as well. And that's hard.

DM: That's right. That's exactly right. I've been – since 1984, when I was head of the Hart campaign in California – I've been in the back rooms and it takes days to hammer out who gets delegates and who's worthy and who's not. It's like, "Well, yeah, that person's a member of the LGBT community, but he didn't help us." You've got to have people inside those meetings and the only way to get people inside those meetings is to be a player and I don't think we were a significant enough player in these primaries.

AB: I want to go back to the past. I understand your college lover, Kit died in an accident when you were younger. His family never knew he was gay and you never went to his funeral. There was a story earlier this year about Major Alan Rogers, who died in Iraq. The papers didn't mention his homosexuality, even though he was gay. The Washington Post later ran an editorial on whether it was right to leave that out. What's your opinion on that? If somebody's family doesn't know that they're gay, but their friends do and it's an essential part of their identity, is that something that should be broached.

DM: Yeah, I think so, in a delicate way. You know, they're going to know when all of his friends show up. They're going to know when his lover's sobbing over the casket. So, one way or another, those lives have to come together in grief around the death. I would hope there would be a way for them to find out aside from reading it in the newspaper. I still remain a somewhat minority against outing. I think you literally are taking a human being's life into your own hands. I think that if someone had outed me – maybe my age is telling here – I would have probably killed myself had I been outed before I was ready. I would hate to think that we would, down the road in our passion for righteousness, did something that caused someone to kill themselves, that would destroy their relationships with their families, that were not given the time. I would like to think that we would approach that with love and support and create a community that would be such an attraction and such a safe place that they would innately feel comfortable being a part of.

AB: Do you regret not going to Kit's funeral?

DM: I couldn't have handled that. I was closeted. No, I don't. I regret that I had no way or nobody to talk to and I was in total agony alone. Never have I felt so alone in my life. It wasn't so much the funeral. It was the isolation.