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Conscription for war is inconsistent with freedom of conscience, which is not merely the right to believe but to act on the degree of truth that one receives, to follow a vocation which is God-inspired and God-directed.

Bayard Rustin

I would say that the black newspapers have played it very straight. If I was attacked they simply published that I was attacked.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Attack Newspaper Play Publish Straight
If I do not fight bigotry wherever it is, bigotry is thereby strengthened. And to the degree that it is strengthened, it will, thereby, have the power to turn on me.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Degree Fighting Turn
Martin Luther King, with whom I worked very closely, became very distressed when a number of the ministers working for him wanted him to dismiss me from his staff because of my homosexuality.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Homosexuality Kings Numbers
The new ‘niggers’ are gays. It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change. The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Barometer Change Nigger Social Vulnerable
You have to all combine and fight a head-on battle – in the name of justice and equality – and even that’s going to be difficult. But if we let ourselves get separated so that we’re working for gays or school children or the aged, we’re in trouble.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Combine Difficult Fight Justice Name Ourselves Separate
I don’t want to seem intolerant to them and I think we have to say that to them with a great deal of affection, but remaining in the closet is the other side of the prejudice against gays. Because until you challenge it, you are not playing an active role in fighting it.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Deal Intolerant Prejudice Remaining Think
We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Community Peace Ubuntu
Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Destroyed Enraged Injustice
Both morally and practically, segregation is to me a basic injustice. Since I believe it to be so, I must attempt to remove it.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Believe Political Three
My activism did not spring from my being gay, or, for that matter, from my being black. Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values that were instilled in me by my grandparents who reared me.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Gay Grandparent Spring
I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Believe Creative Trouble
People will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Fighting Given People
There are three ways in which one can deal with an injustice. (a) One can accept it without protest. (b) On can seek to avoid it. (c) One can resist the injustice non-violently. To accept it is to perpetuate it.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Accept Injustice Protest Seek Violent Way
Since Israel is a democratic state surrounded by essentially undemocratic states which have sworn her destruction, those interested in democracy everywhere must support Israel’s existence.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Country Democracy Support
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Fighting Gay Thinking
My activism did not spring from being black…The racial injustice that was present in this country during my youth was a challenge to my belief in the oneness of the human family.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Country Oneness Spring

Conscription for war is inconsistent with freedom of conscience, which is not merely the right to believe but to act on the degree of truth that one receives, to follow a vocation which is God-inspired and God-directed.

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Conscription for war is inconsistent with freedom of conscience, which is not merely the right to believe but to act on the degree of truth that one receives, to follow a vocation which is God-inspired and God-directed.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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