Laser tanks are impractical. What if the enemy wears mirrored shades? That laser goes right back and kills you instead. You don’t want your 100 million dollar tank to be taken out by a pair of Ray-Bans.

I wasn’t trying to make the point that he or the Mattachine Society didn’t matter. I merely find it very amusing that after a long and meticulously crafted campaign to make gay people as inoffensive and nonthreatening as possible, the thing that accelerated gay acceptance was when the exact opposite happened and people started showing that they didn’t have to be nonthreatening.

The combination of a quiet composed voice and a loud angry one was more effective than either would’ve been on their own.

And then the patrons of a mob-owned bar in New York decided to handle things a bit differently, much to his chagrin. Even more to his chagrin, they turned out to be extremely effective.