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Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays.

Bayard Rustin

Loving your enemy is manifest in putting your arms not around the man but around the social situation, to take power from those who misuse it at which point they can become human too.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Human Manifest Situation Social
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
I would say except when I have been attacked the black community has seldom seen fit to even mention the gay aspect. And since when I have been attacked I have usually been defended by the black community,
BAYARD RUSTIN

Gay Taken Thinking
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Firsts Looks Men
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
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
When I say I love Eastland, it sounds preposterous a man who brutalizes people. But you love him or you wouldn’t be here. You’re going to Mississippi to create social change and you love Eastland in your desire to create conditions which will redeem his children.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Children Inspirational Love Men
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
Looking back at his career, Mr. Rustin, a Quaker, once wrote: ‘The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics; 2) constitutional means; 3) democratic procedures; 4) respect for human personality; 5) a belief that all people are one.’
BAYARD RUSTIN

Careers Mean People
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
When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. But when you’re right, you’re wrong anyhow.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Anyhow Racism Right Wrong
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
Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Gay Law People
The Journey of Reconciliation was organized not only to devise techniques for eliminating Jim Crow in travel, but also as a training ground for similar peaceful projects against discrimination in such major areas as employment and in the armed services.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Crow Journey Peaceful
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. . .
BAYARD RUSTIN

Radical Real Vision
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Anything Defend Effort Simply
I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Believe Creative Trouble
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Character Gay Rights
Bigotrys birthplace is the sinister back room of the mind where plots and schemes are hatched for the persecution and oppression of other human beings.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Birth Mind Place Plot
You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Freedom Movement People
We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Community Peace Ubuntu
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
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Gay Names Organization
Surely, I must at all times attempt to obey the law of the state. But when the will of God and the will of the state conflict, I am compelled to follow the will of God.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Conflict Law States
If we desire a society in which men are brothers, then we must act towards one another with brotherhood. If we can build such a society, then we would have achieved the ultimate goal of human freedom.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Brother Goal Men
Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Destroyed Enraged Injustice
Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Fighting Gay Thinking

Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays.

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Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays.

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