Imagine a time when was a war overseas that divided the country. A time when the wealthy mayor of New York City had dreams of running for president of the United States. Famous people died of drug overdoses No, this isn't Iraq, Bloomberg and Anna Nicole Smith. It's Viet Nam, Lindsay and Jimi Hendrix. It was September of 1970, only months after the National Guard had shot 4 students dead at Kent State in Ohio as the war in Southeast Asia came home to the heartland. The Guard was holding their national convention in NYC at the Sheraton on 53rd and 7th Avenue. Their guest speaker was the general in charge of the war that wasn't at home: William Westmoreland. And students from all over the city were gathering on the street to protest.
I arrived early and was given a stenciled sign provided by the Students Against the War Committee and found myself behind police barricades with a large group of people. And directly behind me, above the shouted anti-war chants, I heard a voice louder than the rest. I turned to see who it came from and there was Mark Segal, short, cute and intense. Holding a pole that held the front end of a banner that read: Gay Youth, Gay Liberation Front, Gay Groups United
Against the War. Gay Youth?!?! I was still 17 years old. I had been to the Oscar Wilde Bookshop when I was 16, before Stonewall. I had been to the West Side Discussion Group. I had been to Julius. I felt way too young everywhere and out of place. And here were people my age — and activists! And the first thing I said was "Where have you been all my life?"
We talked throughout the demo. And the following Sunday I was at my first Gay Youth meeting, at the Church of the Holy Apostle on 9th Avenue in Chelsea.
I'm grateful the demo was captured on page three of the New York Post. There I am, holding my sign up, with Mark Segal behind me holding the front end of the Gay Youth banner. Deeper in 
the paper that day, there was a story about the activists of GAA disrupting a campaign speech by Mayor Lindsay as he aspired to the highest office. I can't imagine activists getting anywhere near a candidate today much less surrounding his car.
So some things don't change. Famous people die of drug overdoses. We choose governments that lead us into unjust wars. But some things do. Because today, 37 years after I met Mark on Seventh Avenue, same sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts. Spain. Canada. South Africa. And will continue to spread.
And Gay Youth continued as an organization. I was president in another year. And it continued long after me — so that I could run into alumni the Gay & Lesbian Youth just the other day in the Village and spend the afternoon on the pier hanging out with them. A tradition of youth activism that has spread around the country so that high school students have the courage to bring same sex partners to proms in increasing numbers. Yes, there are setbacks all the time. But the ongoing movement has always been forward.
I will always be grateful to Mark Segal. And I am in awe of those young people today, like the student activists in Soulforce, who continue to press for full equality under the most hostile conditions. And I am proud to be part of this lineage.
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