Equality
“Until gay marriage is legalized, this fundamental element of personal dignity will be denied a whole segment of humanity. No other change can achieve it. If nothing else were done at all, and gay marriage were legalized, ninety percent of the political work necessary to achieve gay and lesbian equality would have been achieved. It is ultimately the only reform that truly matters. It does not legislate private tolerance; it declares public equality – and affirms a simple and limited principle: that all public discrimination against homosexuals be ended and that every right and responsibility that heterosexuals enjoy as public citizens be extended to [all].”
- Andrew Sullivan, Virtually Normal (1995)
“Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."
- Justice Anthony Kennedy, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)
“Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the civil rights movement was the memory of the simple courage of those who stood up in the face of considerable danger for their dignity and their equality – the gleam of integrity in the eyes of those who took it upon themselves to change their world, expecting no protection and no applause for doing so. It is courage that gets noticed, and courage that changes the world.”
- Andrew Sullivan
