David Ginsburg Quotes
Americans should be free to make their own choice of life styles and private habits without being subject to discrimination or persecution.
This was the first political statement of either party regarding gay rights
David Ginsburg, Politician (Democrat), Democratic Party Platform, 1972
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Clinton was reacting to questioning about gays in the military.
At a Conservative party caucus, there was opposition to Mulroney's policy of allowing homosexuals to serve in the Canadian armed forces.
The call had been taped by Wead without Bush’s knowledge when Bush was first running for the Presidency. His radical right supporters among the Christian fundamentalists believed that Bush was opposed to gay lifestyles.
The irony is that the Republican party not only is in general very hostile to homosexuals, supports all kind of legislation that discriminates against them, but also uses anti-gay sentiment to whip up political support for the party. It opposes making attacks on gays, “hate crimes,” Nonetheless, homosexuals, like other groups of Americans have different philosophical and political views and some of those whose views tend to the conservative camp, have chosen to support the party and work for change and eliminate the hatred and intolerance from within.
The Arab States opposed the creation of Israel. They promised that Jews could like in Arab lands and would have “absolute protection” and “no discrimination whatsoever”, There was no need for a separate Jewish since the Islamic states were open to Jews. At the time, few took the statement seriously. The Islamic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem had been a general officer of the Nazi SS. There had been hundreds of anti jewish riots where Jews were killed and if they were lucky, only their property would be destroyed. Historically, only in Ataturk’s Turkey could Jews and Christians live as equals in an Islamic state. Under Islamic law, “people of the book”—Christians and Jews—could live in Muslim nations but had to pay special taxes and had many restrictions on their public visibility. Since 1947, there is not a single Islamic state in the Middle East with the exception of Turkey where Jews had “absolute protection: and were not discriminated against.
Islam forbids homosexuality and Sharia (Islamic religious law) prescribes death as the penalty for homosexuality. At that time Iran was a Muslim theocracy and if there were overt homosexuality that was officially discovered, the heretics would be killed. The logic of the government was that since they had killed the homosexuals, there were none left. At the same time all the research showed that while Muslim homosexuality was slightly less than Christian, it was still quite significant in all Muslim cultures that had been studied. If the President was to be believed, Iran was the only exception.
Both the United States and Canada had laws regulating the sexual behavior of citizens in the privacy of their own homes. It was not just homosexuality that the state attempted to control. Even the specific positions and methods of heterosexual intercourse were controlled by some states. Oral sex, certain positions of intercourse and other “details” could put a person in jail. Canada, a parliamentary nation, changed this by legislation. In the United States, it was the Supreme Court decisions protecting privacy that invalidated these old sexual role restrictions and prescriptions. For example, just 4 years before this quotation was made, 1963, the state of Connecticut was ordered (Griswald v. Connecticut) to release a pharmacist for the “crime” of filling a doctor’s prescription for condoms for a married couple where the wife would likely die if she became pregnant and carried the baby to term.
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Charles David Ginsburg was an American political advisor and lawyer who was among the founders of Americans for Democratic Action and served as executive director of the Kerner Commission, which warned that the U.S. was "moving toward two societies—one black, one white, separate and unequal."
