I pray that politicians, lawmakers and religious leaders have the courage to support the choices terminally ill citizens make in departing Mother Earth with dignity and love.

I suppose being the kind of creatures we [people] are, we like to censor the past, and are selective, or want to be selective about the things that we remember. If you want to destroy people, destroy their memory, destroy their history.

People are killed because they're gay. I don't think, "What do I want to do today? I want to speak up on gay rights." No. It's God catching me by my neck. I wish I could keep quiet about the plight of the Palestinians. I can't!

There are people who go to bed hungry, and that is unconscionable.

To be neutral in a situation of injustice is to have chosen sides already. It is to support the status quo.

Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity - or because of their sexual orientation.

I give great thanks to God that he has created a Dalai Lama. Do you really think, as some have argued, that God will be saying: 'You know, that guy, the Dalai Lama, is not bad. What a pity he's not a Christian'? I don't think that is the case - because, you see, God is not a Christian.