Quotes

"[My openly gay Sunday school teacher] made it very clear that you have a special gift, and as long as you lead your life with dignity, and are a human being of your word, and you have good character, the world cannot deny you."

-- Kenneth Reeves, on his own wonderful coming out experience as a teen. Reeves, a City Council Member and former Mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1992-1995, was the first openly gay African-American man to head a major U.S. city. More at: http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2002/brotheroutsider/reeves.html

"Gay people are the sweetest, kindest, most artistic, warmest and most thoughtful people in the world. And since the beginning of time all they've ever been is kicked ..."

-- Openly gay singer, Little Richard

"Equality is more than tolerance, compassion, understanding, acceptance, benevolence, for these still come from a place of implied superiority: favors granted to those less fortunate. These attitudes suggest that there is still something wrong, something not quite right that must be overlooked or seen beyond."

-- Openly lesbian author, Suzanne Pharr

"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life."

-- Jane Addams, social worker & feminist ... she lived long before anyone defined themselves as "lesbian," but she "shared her life for 40 years" with Mary Rozet Smith

"Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect."

-- Eleanor Roosevelt, ambassador, first lady, human rights activist ... who had two loves in her life, her husband, Franklin, and her partner, Lorena

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

-- Bishop Desmond Tutu

"We can love what we are, without hating what -- and who -- we are not. We can thrive in our own tradition, even as we learn from others, and come to respect their teachings."

-- Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize

"Don't pray in my school, and I won't think in your church."

"The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value."
-- Theodore Roosevelt

"I would advise them to look for that other guy Osama (bin Laden)...rather than comedians. I don't think we pose much of a threat."

- Scott Dikkers, editor-in-chief of The Onion, in response to a White House request that the satirical newspaper stop using the presidential seal.