#rights

If you want to test cosmetics, why do it on some poor animal who hasn't done anything? They should use prisoners who have been convicted of murder or rape instead. So, rather than seeing if perfume irritates a bunny rabbit's eyes, they should throw it in Charles Manson's eyes and ask him if it hurts. ↗

— Ellen DeGeneres

#animal-rights #animal-testing #animal-welfare #animals #cosmetics

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." (1962) ↗

— John F. Kennedy

#political-rights #protest #revolution #violence #violence

If the prisoner is beaten, it is an arrogant expression of fear. ↗

— Ghassan Kanafani

#prisoners #resistance #short-story

The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion in the only guarantee of morality. ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer

#animals #barbarism #compassion #cruelty #morality

We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought. ↗

— Kathryn Stockett

#people #race-relations #separation

But gay marriage is coming to America first and foremost because marriage here is a secular concern, not a religious one. The objection to gay marriage is almost invariably biblical, but nobody's legal vows in this country are defined by interpretation of biblical verse - or at least, not since the Supreme Court stood up for Richard and Mildred Loving. A church wedding ceremony is a nice thing, but it is neither required for legal marriage in America nor does it constitute legal marriage in America. What constitutes legal marriage in this country is that critical piece of paper that you and your betrothed must sign and then register with the state. The morality of your marriage may indeed rest between you and God, but it's that civic and secular paperwork which makes your vows official here on earth. Ultimately, then, it is the business of America's courts, not America's churches, to decide the rules of matrimonial law, and it is in those courts that the same-sex marriage debate will finally be settled. ↗

— Elizabeth Gilbert

#gay-rights #marriage #same-sex-marriage #business

These days, however, I am much calmer - since I realised that it’s technically impossible for a woman to argue against feminism. Without feminism, you wouldn’t be allowed to have a debate on women’s place in society. You’d be too busy giving birth on the kitchen floor - biting down on a wooden spoon, so as not to disturb the men’s card game - before going back to quick-liming the dunny. This is why those female columnists in the Daily Mail - giving daily wail against feminism - amuse me. They paid you £1,600 for that, dear, I think. And I bet it’s going in your bank account, and not your husband’s. The more women argue loudly, against feminism, the more they both prove it exists and that they enjoy its hard-won privileges. ↗

— Caitlin Moran

#women #women-s-rights #business

How did I make a living? I haven't. I have eked out an existence." - Ella Baker ↗

— Gail Collins

#ella-baker #existence #life #naacp #volunteer

Don't forget your great guns, which are the most respectable arguments of the rights of kings. ↗

— Frederick The Great

#great #guns #kings #most #respectable

Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely important: euthanasia is not forbidden by law in their case; animals have the right to a merciful death. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#animals #death #euthanasia #human-rights #death