Roger asked:

What is a community?

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A community may be a group of people identified in terms of their commitment to a particular way of
life, or a set of people who hold to something in common, and is a subset of society. Being a member
of a community requires a positive commitment. Society is something we cannot help being involved
in unless we rebel against society, such as New Age travellers did. Commitment is important if a
community such as the gay community can properly be regarded as such. To be a member of the gay
community is to openly declare oneself as gay and to take an interest in gay causes and issues. To
be privately gay, taking no interest in the gay community is not to be a member.

A neighbourhood may constitute a community if the residents regard it as such and treat it so. If there
is no sense of neighbourliness then there is no community.

Neighbourhood communities and ethnic communities are based upon being in a particular locality,
and because we say "there is a large gay community in Sydney" I assume this is also true of the gay
community as such.

Rachel Browne