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 RUSTINThe moral man is he who is opposed to injustice per se, opposed to injustice wherever he finds it; the moral man looks for injustice first of all in himself.
More Bayard Rustin Quotes
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The real radical is that person who has a vision of equality and is willing to do those things that will bring reality closer to that vision. . .
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if I was defended they simply said I had been defended. But I don’t think they have taken any effort at maligning me or maligning gays or making any effort to give to people anything that wasn’t news.
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I would say that the black newspapers have played it very straight. If I was attacked they simply published that I was attacked.
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We are all one – and if we don’t know it, we will learn it the hard way.
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Twenty-five, 30 years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States were black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves gay, homosexual, lesbian.
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Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.
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I am an opponent of war and of war preparations and an opponent of universal military training and conscription; but entirely apart from that issue, I hold that segregation in any part of the body politic is an act of slavery and an act of war.
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You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
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If people do not organize in the name of their interest, the world will not take them as being serious. And that is the chief reason that every person who is gay should join some gay organization. Because he must prove to the world that he cares about his own freedom.
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If anyone thinks they’re going to get anything out of the Reagan administration for any particular group, they’re wrong!
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We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.
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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.
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To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true.
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The moral man is he who is opposed to injustice per se, opposed to injustice wherever he finds it; the moral man looks for injustice first of all in himself.
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Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays.
BAYARD RUSTIN