David Mixner

Along with former President Bill Clinton, we have Sam Nunn to thank for the sorry debacle of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'

She was green when green wasn't in. From sea to shining sea, Lady Bird Johnson has left her legacy in a more beautiful America. From millions of trees and wildflowers planted, to interstates free from billboards and replaced with green.

Passed down from generation to generation, storytelling was an art in my family.

Evan Wolfson is a dear friend of mine. Almost more than any other, Evan is responsible for bringing the issue of marriage equality to the forefront of our struggle for civil rights. He is a courageous pioneer who has been relentless in this battle for marriage equality.

When she was running for election in 2006, I went to Missouri to campaign for Senator Claire McCaskill. She impressed the hell out of me and I fell in love with her mother Betty Anne who is a pistol!

Where gays and lesbians are the best organized and most concentrated in numbers are states that President Clinton must carry in order to be reelected in 1996. Among the states are California, New York, Michigan, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois.

I often laugh and say I should go down to the Department of the Interior and register as an endangered species. I'm a gay man over 60 and I'm alive.

Politics was put in front of me. I do politics because it's the vehicle for change and because I happen to be good at it... I had this sort of calm fearlessness, that some would call foolishness.

I love books, I love art, I'm a fanatic nature and wildlife person. People assume I'm a political animal, power hungry, wanting to run for office. And anyone who knows me knows that none of that's true.

Sick people, particularly those with serious conditions, greatly prefer the company of their friends and family to residence in a hospital or nursing home.

Those of us who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s have a very special spot in our heart for home-based health care.

For many people with HIV, finding the right doctor is the most important decision they'll make.

Treating HIV/AIDS is a lifelong commitment that demands strict adherence to drug protocols, consistent care, and a trusting relationship with health care providers.

Those who are trying to remain healthy with HIV/AIDS are in the most vulnerable period of their lives; that's no time to leave them without access to care.

Pharmaceutical companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new HIV/AIDS treatments not out of altruism but because they can make up those research costs in sales.

HIV/AIDs patients depend on highly trained, specialized physicians. Each and every patient has a unique combination of retrovirals they depend on to keep them alive.

Sam Nunn might bring us Georgia and maybe even another Southern state but, in my opinion, at an unacceptable cost to our principles and to the concept of change that has stirred millions to rise and work for Barack Obama. Sam Nunn would be a disaster as a running mate and a total anathema to millions of Americans.

The number of people with HIV receiving Medicare benefits has grown over time, reflecting growth in the size of the of the HIV positive population in the U.S. but also an increased lifespan for people with HIV due to antiretroviral medicines and other treatment advances.

The lesson is the same as it always has been to the HIV/AIDS community: embrace and celebrate the progress while not letting up the pressure until there is a cure.

Turkey Hollow is a small country town in Sullivan County, a remote region of the Catskill Mountains. Surrounded by forests, it counts 10 full-time residents, has no mail service, and no cell phone reception. However, what it lacks in amenities, it compensates for in sheer natural wonder.

As a spiritual person, nature for me has always been a healing place. Going back all the way to my childhood on the farm, the fields and forests were places of adventure and self-discovery. Animals were companions and friends, and the world moved at a slower, more rational pace than the bustling cities where I'd resided my adult life.

At 60, the mind was sharp but the body complained. The legs were willing to make all the right moves but the muscles gave out too early.

I am so tired of being told by Democratic operatives to 'suck it up' because so many other profound issues are at stake.

Change comes with both fear and some pain. Those two ingredients create mistrust, misunderstanding and misinformation. Such is the process of democracy.

I had old bunk beds that my dad got from Seabrook Farms. They were first used by German prisoners during World War II, who were sent to work the farms during the war. The metal beds with their thin mattresses could easily be used as a jungle gym and I loved them.