Bayard Rustin Quotes

I think that people are concerned about the breakdown of the family but they also don't want to see discrimination against gays and lesbians who they work with and they want to be able to make sure that gays can visit each other in hospitals and be able to inherit property.

Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.

I was on a panel with light skinned Blacks and a famous gay science fiction writer, who were complaining about how Blacks are against gays and light skinned Blacks and how intolerant Blacks are of different groups. My position was that Blacks were among the most humanistic, tolerant groups in the country and that across the street from my house in Oakland was one inhabited by White gays.

We think of Shots Fired as almost an autopsy of Ferguson that shows the events from every street in the house. And, in dealing with these two murders of a black victim and a white victim, we show the ways that communities and the media deal with victims differently based on race.

I don't get this shitty attitude that only gays should care about gay issues and only women should care about women's issues.

They always try to make it like jocks discriminate against gay people. I've been a big proponent of gay marriage for a long time, because as a black person, I can't be in for any form of discrimination at all.

I oftentimes receive the question, "What do you think is the most important social issue to focus on?" Or, "What's the most important component of identity? Is it gay rights or race or feminism?" And I'm like, "Well, they're all intertwined. It's all one conversation at the end of the day. You can't just pick one." I mean, people experience all kinds of prejudice because of all different parts of themselves. And that doesn't make one part more important than the other.

To me gay rights is the last civil right that we have not granted in America and I think it's an enormous embarrassment.

I think people will have great conversations about religions, women's sexuality, gender issues and gay issues.

You talk about the Pro-Life movement being one of the great shames of our nation. I think, if you want number two, I think - I think it's that. I think it's absolute - it's a travesty that people have forced someone who is gay to make their case that they deserve the same basic rights.

What's great about it is that you see, the great struggle for gay people is that the politics is just not going to work for us.

To me, same-sex marriage is like the new normal. I don't give a sh*t. If two gay people want to get married it doesn't bother me. If two people say they love each other and they want to be together, they should be together. Don't you think?

Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian. Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black. There is no hierarchy of oppression.

Does the mainstream media have a liberal bias? On a couple of things, maybe. Compared to the American public at large, probably a slightly higher percentage of journalists, because of thier enhanced power of discernment, realize they know a gay person or two, and are, therefore, less frightened of them.

I think it's ridiculous that we even have to talk about gay rights as rights...It's gonna be as shocking as the treatment of slaves someday.

There are a lot of people that form movements around particular commitments, like gay rights. It is important, but it does not link easily to, say, economic rights, and it often looks like it's opposed to them. The attempt to bring these together has yet to be done in a truly effective way, and I think it can be.

I don't need to be redundant to the gay community about what's wrong and what isn't happening for them.

I think gay people deserve all the same rights as everybody else, it's just that marriage is specifically for a man and a woman.

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!

We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I'm going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it.

I think if the world were a fair and just place, there wouldn't even need to be a gay label.

The gay movement has realized its agenda, so they've gotta transfer that energy somewhere and transgenders is the next.

I think that we ought to be a tolerant nation. I think we ought to be tolerant people. But we shouldn't set up special categories for anybody. And I'm for the rights of everybody, including gays, but not any special rights.

The ultimate moment where I most felt like a rebel was in St. Petersburg, Russia [in 2012 during the MDNA Tour] when I was told they were going to arrest anyone who was openly or obviously gay and they came to my shows and I spoke out against the government.

Gays are beginning to realize what blacks learned long ago: Unless you are out here fighting for yourself then nobody else will help you. I think the gay community has a moral obligation to continue the fight.