#gh

[Button] If Gay and Lesbian people are given civil rights, soon everyone will want them ↗

— James Howe

#gay #gay-rights #glbt #equality

The day may come when the rest of animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognized that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? ↗

— Jeremy Bentham

#jeremy-bentham #equality

We cannot keep turning our backs on gay and lesbian Americans. I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. ↗

— John Lewis

#equal-rights #gays #lesbians #racial-discrimination #sexual-orientation

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. ↗

— James Madison

#his #man #may #property #right

People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in. ↗

— Rosa Parks

#equality #equality

Even if you are a woman who achieves the ultimate and becomes like a man, you will still always be like a woman. And as long as womanhood is thought of as something to escape from, something less than manhood, you will be thought less of, too. ↗

— Ariel Levy

#female-chauvinist #feminism #patriarchy #equality

While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, The fate of empires and the fall of kings; While quacks of State must each produce his plan, And even children lisp the Rights of Man; Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, The Rights of Woman merit some attention. ↗

— Robert Burns

#equality #human-rights #politics #women #womens-rights

I find it strange that practicing law in a comfortable well-heated office is considered too demanding an occupation for women, yet laboring from dawn's first light in crowded, drafty, ill-lit sweatshops is not. ↗

— Shirley Tallman

#gender-equality #sexism #women #women-s-rights #equality

The prescription of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings. ↗

— Peter Singer

#equality #equality

Like other women who sought equality, the amount of trouble I cause is inversely proportional to my physical size. ↗

— Cassandra Duffy

#women-s-rights #women-s-strength #equality