Mikhail Baryshnikov Quotes

Along with racial equality and the late bloom of women's rights, future generations will have to explain how, in the past, gays were misunderstood and publicly humiliated for loving each other, and, eventually, how they stood together and conquered stupidity and hypocritical hatred, and fought their way out of marginalization.

There's nothing wrong with being gay. I have plenty of friends who are going to hell.

I've been standing with and united with the gay community. I know so many gay men and women that homophobia is such a baffling thing for me.

I've had the experience of going through homophobia in my work, and I can share my experiences so future generations don't have to deal with what I've dealt with.

I'm not homophobic and I'm not anti-gay.

With all the people hating and hurting each other, I don't understand how people could get upset about people of the same sex caring for each other.

A lot of my friends are gay, and certainly I have no tolerance for anyone who has any sort of ignorance or restriction on people's lives or love lives.

Honestly, I am hoping to influence young people, and Twitter's a great way to encourage them to lend their voice to the conversation. Any time you can show young people that you support gay friends and that there are gay people in the world who are lovely, happy, singing, and in love, it opens their minds.

Gay people got a right to be as miserable as everybody else.

The death of anti-gay hate speech is no doubt being hastened by the head-spinning speed with which gays as a group - to say nothing of gay marriage - are becoming an unremarkable and even quite traditional parts of American life.

I'm not against gay people.

No one should be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation.

I think as a whole America is dealing with the issue of homophobia. We got to be really honest about whether we believe in civil rights for all people or not. As Black people we need to remember the moment that we say it's okay to disenfranchise one segment of society, we're opening the door to move backward on ourselves.

I don’t believe that opposite sex and same sex marriages are the same, but I do believe, with growing numbers of Americans, that the time for denigrating or stigmatizing same sex relationships are over.

If they’re [homosexuals are] not going to get eternal benefits in Heaven, why should we give them government rewards here on this earth? I don’t think we should.

Since I was a young girl in the punk scene, almost all of my friends have been gay or lesbian, so for me, it's an obvious answer when it comes to whether or not gay people should be recognized as equal.

There were, and still are, a lot of different points of view in the gay community. It's not everybody holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya.' People have very different perspectives.

It should never be a crime to be gay.

Gay rights are not primarily marriage rights, and for the millions who live in unaccepting places with no resources, dignity remains elusive. I am lucky to have forged meaning and built identity, but that's still a rare privilege. And gay people deserve more, collectively, than the crumbs of justice.

The gay people with whom I am close are some of the strongest, most passionate and caring people I know, and their demands for justice are no less imperative than those of any other community.

Unlike people of my generation, my children and my grandchildren have grown up living with, knowing, people who were outwardly gay and lesbian. And they have learned that they're just like us... And when you see that they're just like us, the rationale for discrimination melts away.

Far too many LGBTQ individuals are the victims of violence and hatred, and we must all fight together to ensure that no one is erased or marginalized because of how they identify or who they love.

For those who support same-sex marriage - and I support it without reservation - the ideal of equality and the belief in the dignity of same-sex relationships necessarily makes the issue seem a great deal like the civil-rights struggles of the past.

I have friends who are in gay relationships and I don't think it's right for people to be against that.

If you're gay, that doesn't mean I want to discriminate against you, belittle or bully you, abuse or offend you. Not at all. I don't want to go back to the dark days of criminalisation and the imprisonment of gay men and women; of Section 28 and legalised discrimination.