Jean O'Leary Quotes

The constitution does not provide for first and second class citizens.

The struggle for equality is really a struggle for democracy, and that's why it's a struggle for all the population.

You can't put civil rights on the ballot.

During times of emergencies, civil crisis, or natural disasters it is important for persons to remain free to exercise their constitutional rights in a lawful and appropriate manner, and I believe it is important that we provide individuals with specific reassurance that we value those rights.

For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.

The Constitution did not mention women when it was first written, and it still doesn't.

Like a majority of Americans in recent years, I came to understand that fear of homosexuality was leading our governments - including the one I ran as Governor of Mississippi - to deny the equal rights to an entire segment of our population that are afforded all of us under the Constitution.

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.

All I did was ask for rights. I didn't attack anyone. I didn't harass anyone. I didn't oppose the system or the country or the authority. All I said is, 'Why can't I drive?'

Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression.

I really think the Patriot Act violates our Constitution. It was, it is, an illegal act. The Congress, the Senate and the president cannot change the Constitution.

Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond the Constitution.

The USA was founded in the name of democracy, equality and individual freedom, but is failing to deliver the fundamental promise of protecting rights for all.

... a lynching of the Constitution.

Civil Rights Program is a farce and a sham – an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty.

Perhaps at no time in our history had there been such a wholesale violation of civil liberties.

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

The Constitution guaranteed every individual’s rights but could not eliminate their prejudices.

I take it that any statute which is not equal to all, and which deprives any citizen of civil rights, which are secured to other citizens, is an unjust encroachment upon his liberty; and it is in fact a badge of servitude which by the Constitution is prohibited

The Constitution doesn’t say that whites alone shall have our basic rights.., but that we shall all have them

One of the things that the court held in Brown v. Board of Education is that government can't impose a badge of inferiority on some of its citizens. Yet that is exactly what Proposition 8 does with respect to gay and lesbian couples in California.

Our rights to live and to love each other, those rights are greater than any other right in the Constitution, period.

In a democracy, everyone has a right to put forward one's views. But people resorting to violent demonstrations in the name of Dalits are bound to be exposed.

It is commonly believed that the rights of the American people come from the Constitution. Nothing could be further from the truth.

People are dreaming if they think they have rights. They've never had rights. There's no such thing.