Quotes About Rights

Gays have rights, lesbians have rights, men have rights, women have rights, even animals have rights. How many of us have to die before the community recognizes that we are not expendable?

Abortion is a states' rights issue. Education is a states' right issue. Medicinal marijuana is a states' rights issue. Gay marraige is a states' rights issue. Assisted suicide- like Terri Schiavo- is a states' rights issue. Come to think of it, almost every issue is a states' rights issue. Let's get the federal government out of our lives.

I went to my first civil rights rally when I was 17 years old. I was a little skinny blond kid, scared to death, marching against the KKK in South Georgia. And I have never stopped marching in protests since. Not ever. I mean, LGBT rights, women's rights, the rights of people of color... I'm your guy. I'm going to be out there marching!

Human beings have rights, because they are moral beings: the rights of all men grow out of their moral nature; and as all men havethe same moral nature, they have essentially the same rights. These rights may be wrested from the slave, but they cannot be alienated: his title to himself is as perfect now, as is that of Lyman Beecher: it is stamped on his moral being, and is, like it, imperishable.

Just as the white man and every other person on this earth has God-given rights, natural rights, civil rights, any kind of rights that you can think of, when it comes to defending himself, black people - we should have the right to defend ourselves also.

One of the movements we have developed is to say that, just as intellectual property rights protect the inventions of individuals, common rights are needed to protect the common intellectual heritage of indigenous peoples. These are rights that are recognized through the Convention on Biological Diversity. We are working to make sure that they become foundations of our jurisprudence.

It is up to each and every one of us to raise our voice against crimes that deprive countless victims of their liberty, dignity and human rights. We have to work together to realize the equal rights promised to all by the United Nations Charter. And we must collectively give meaning to the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that "no one shall be held in slavery or servitude"

People say, "Oh, we ought to fight for animal rights." We fought for human rights, but even if humans have rights, they can still be horribly abused and are every day. You don't have to go to some far off land, far away place; we have a lot of child abuse in our own society.

You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people. Therefore join the movement as individuals against anti-Semitism, join the movements for the rights of Hispanics, the rights of women, the rights of gays. In other words, I think that each movement has to stand on its own feet because it has a particular agenda, but it can ask other people.

I have no use for "men's rights," any more than I have any use for "women's rights," but let us ask: Who was it that decided it was a good idea to politicize love, sex and marriage? Who spent the past four decades proclaiming that "the personal is political," so that every office flirtation and every petty domestic quarrel is a federal civil rights violation? The damned feminists, that's who.

In my judgment the people of no nation can lose their liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes. I fear to see the consequences of the Court's practice of substituting its own concepts of decency and fundamental justice for the language of the Bill of Rights as its point of departure in interpreting and enforcing that Bill of Rights.

... woman's cause is the cause of the weak; and when all the weak shall have received their due consideration, then woman will have her "rights," and the Indian will have his rights, and the Negro will have his rights, and all the strong will have learned at last to deal justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly; and our fair land will have been taught the secret of universal courtesy which is after all nothing but the art, the science, and the religion of regarding one's neighbor as one's self, and to do for him as we would, were conditions swapped, that he do for us.

The right to life is the source of all rights -- and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.

First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.

The Democrats co-opted the credit for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But if you go back and look at the history, a larger percentage of Republicans voted for that than did Democrats. But a Democrat president signed it, so they co-opted credit for having passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I support the rights of all people to practice their religious beliefs privately, but I oppose the idea of respecting religions. In truth, I have no respect for any religion. I believe religion is not compatible with human rights, women's rights, or freedom of expression.

I have little patience with people who take the Bill of Rights for granted. The Bill of Rights, contained in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, is every American's guarantee of freedom.

Place three individuals in a situation wherein the interest of each depends on the voice of the others, and give to two of them an interest opposed to the rights of the third. Will the latter be secure? The prudence of every man would shun the danger. The rules & forms of justice suppose & guard against it. Will two thousand in a like situation be less likely to encroach on the rights of one thousand?

As to women, the Islamic faith has given women rights that are equal to or more than the rights given them in the Old Testament and the Bible.

Nine people out of ten (in Germany and England, perhaps ten people) would rather wait for their rights than fight for their rights.

The last point for consideration is the supposed disposition of the people to interfere with the rights of property. So essential does it appear to me, to the cause of good government, that the rights of property should be held sacred, that I would agree to deprive those of the elective franchise against whom it could justly be alleged that they considered it their interest to invade them.

Most Americans who made it past the fourth grade have a pretty good idea who Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr., were. Not many Americans have even heard of Alice Paul, Howard W. Smith, and Martha Griffiths. But they played almost as big a role in the history of women’s rights as Marshall and King played in the history of civil rights for African-Americans. They gave women the handle to the door to economic opportunity, and nearly all the gains women have made in that sphere since the nineteen-sixties were made because of what they did.

The civil rights movement didn't deal with the issue of political disenfranchisement in the Northern cities. It didn't deal with the issues that were happening in places like Detroit, where there was a deep process of deindustrialization going on. So you have this response of angry young people, with a war going on in Vietnam, a poverty program that was insufficient, and police brutality. All these things gave rise to the black power movement. The black power movement was not a separation from the civil rights movement, but a continuation of this whole process of democratization.

I don't call myself a white supremacist. I'm a civil rights activist concerned about European-American rights.

When people denounced [former Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad for rejecting and criminalizing homosexuality, it should be remembered that was true of the United States until very recently. Women's rights were unheard of. Civil rights proponents were horribly treated, not just in the South. It was awful there, but pretty bad here. Environmental issues did not exist. Opposition to aggression was virtually zero. In fact, so little, that to this day, even scholarship mentions the Vietnam War as beginning in 1965.

When the United States stands up for human rights, by example at home and by effort abroad, we align ourselves with men and women around the world who struggle for the right to speak their minds, to choose their leaders, and to be treated with dignity and respect. We also strengthen our security and well being, because the abuse of human rights can feed many of the global dangers that we confront - from armed conflict and humanitarian crises, to corruption and the spread of ideologies that promote hatred and violence.

No country should deny people their rights because of who they love, which is why we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere.

The tories major announcement was to scrap the human rights act, because and I quote 'people get very frustrated with human rights'.

This is the gay agenda: equality. Not special rights, but the rights that are already written by [our Founding Fathers].

However, if the religions in essence merely repeat statements from the United Nations Human Rights Declaration, such a Declaration becomes superfluous; an ethic is more than rights.

The situation of the Salvadorian people is terrible; all their rights are violated. There is a direct violation against the human person, a violation of rights that is endemic in society.

It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon the book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do.

There can be people who feel one way about gay rights, another way about gay rights. There can be people who have different views on abortion. But we respect each other. I think we learn from each other. And we understand that ultimately we have the same values.

A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man.

American labor rights activist, on activities of the National Farm Workers Association Human law may know no distinction among men in respect of rights, but human practice may.

In 1694 a law was passed "that every settler who deserted a town for fear of the Indians should forfeit all his rights therein." But now, at any rate, as I have frequently observed, a man may desert the fertile frontier territories of truth and justice, which are the State's best lands, for fear of far more insignificant foes, without forfeiting any of his civil rights therein. Nay, townships are granted to deserters, and the General Court, as I am sometimes inclined to regard it, is but a deserters' camp itself.

There are degrees of incompatibility, and there are more factors relevant to upholding democracy and human rights than the operation of neoliberal markets. Perhaps this point can be initially made by reference to the decline of democracy and the erosion of human rights within the United States since the 9/11 attacks.

Whoever defends his own rights defends the rights of all.

The whole reason for the success of Dr. King's civil-rights movement was that it was not a movement for itself. The civil-rights movement understood very clearly, and stated very beautifully, that it was a question of humanism, not a sectarian movement at all.

Fundamental rights are for everyone and have to be respected by everyone. But we can't be naïve in dealing with those who are abusing the principles protecting fundamental rights.

I've heard the government say many nice things. But it did make some gestures, like writing human rights protection into the constitution - that surprised me. And it improved the conditions for foreign journalists: It used to be impossible for you to meet with me personally. But there still hasn't been a real improvement in the human rights situation.

The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadows of states rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights

And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind is closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and do it gladly so.

The drafting of a legally binding instrument concerning the human rights impacts of the activities of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and other business enterprises has been proposed. Such a treaty or convention should strengthen the United Nations “protect, respect and remedy” framework of the Guiding Principles, which were unanimously endorsed by the Human Rights Council in 2011.

I submit that the Government exists to provide for the needs of the people, and when it comes to choice between profits and property rights on the one hand and human welfare on the other, there should be no hesitation whatsoever in saying that we are going to place the human welfare consideration first and let property rights and financial interests fare as best they may.

We have to recognise that rights are being violated. The United Nations actually filed a report that found that that was the case, that mass surveillance is a violation of rights.

I have my rights, not because of Washington suddenly deciding, Strom Thurmond and others, "Hey, let's give certain Americans equal rights." But because of the ardent, unyielding voice of protesters.

If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek. If leaving duties unperformed we run after rights, they will escape us like a will-o'-the-wisp.