From: "The Best Little Boy in the World" 1973

"Just as blacks in a predominantly white society are inordinately conscious of their color, gays in a predominantly straight society are inordinately conscious of their sexuality. (By the same token, I would guess that Catholics in Belfast spend more time thinking about their religion than Catholics in Rome). Constant awareness of a socially undesirable trait can be debilitating, alienating, embittering. It can make you paranoid or just plain bitchy. In any case, it will have a profound effect. Not the skin color itself - that will determine only the degree to which you reflect light and can hide in dark corners. It is the "wrongness" of the color that will get to you. Not the sexual orientation itself - that will only determine whom you want to sleep with. It is the wrongness of the orientation that will get to you. In both cases, it is the prejudice, not the condition, that does the harm. It may be, as some would have it, that blacks are inherently inferior to whites or that homosexuals are all, by definition, sick. So what? Even if either condition truly is inherently undesirable, no manner of social pressure will turn blacks into whites or gays into straights. Social pressure will only exaggerate the handicap. It is still the prejudice, more than the condition, that does the harm.

There are more interesting differences between gays and blacks, too. People may not like blacks, but they can hardly argue that blackness is immoral, that blacks should be painted white. By contrast, many still feel that homosexuality is "bad," that homosexuals should be treated to make them heterosexuals. And, if you are black, everyone knows it. It's just a physical property, though it has its effect on the mind as the mind develops. But if you are gay, it can be (and must be) hidden. It is all in your mind. Tangible manifestations may follow, as in manner of dress or speech - but conceivably there could be five or ten or twenty million men and women walking around this country whom everybody assumes are straight, but who are actually gay.

Given the social and career costs of being gay, most of those who are not obvious are not going to wave only flags. A white newsman or politician can join the fight for racial equality without fear that people will suspect he is black. Can a straight male do the same for the gay cause?"

Quoted from "The Best Little Boy in the World" penned under the name John Reid in 1973. Surprising to see what has changed in 35 years; the level of PC language used rather than the issues themselves.