In the 70's it was a far more radical and dangerous thing to "come out of the closet" than it is today. You really had to believe in the fundamental legitimacy of homosexuality as a psychological resource that belonged to all of humanity, just as blacks had to really embrace their fundamental equality and potential to give something of lasting importance to the world. Nowadays, being gay doesn't mean anything because everybody's gone "politically correct" about it. In fact, gays are treated in the movies as loveable clowns and nitwits. Gay mayors are given license to be utter fools.

Paul would have been devastated by what has happened to the Gay Liberation movement. All that was liberated was conventionality, hedonism and me-too thinking. It's politically expedient for gays to whine that "they were just born that way" and that you shouldn't blame them for their lamentable condition. Frank Aqueno is still writing about that issue today, insisting that chosing to explore the gay world was an important part of his becoming a highly developed human being.

Martin Luther King would have been crestfallen by the rise of "gangsta rap", for similar reasons. I'm on the side of Paul here, and Martin. It's right to believe that people have the capacity to save the world, even when they fail to do it. Your parents could have saved the world, actually. And that makes their failure all the more palpable.