“You’re saying, no, state said two kinds of marriage; the full marriage, and then this sort of skim-milk marriage.”

The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control.

It’s hard not to have a big year at the Supreme Court.

Be independent and be a lady.

Every constitution written since the end of World War II includes a provision that men and women are citizens of equal stature. Ours does not.

I didn’t change the Constitution; the equality principle was there from the start. I just was an advocate for seeing its full realization.

The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.

A gender line helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.

Promoting active liberty does not mean allowing the majority to run roughshod over minorities.

You can’t have it all, all at once.

Prisons should be co-ed because separate quarters are discriminatory.

There is a Constitutional right to prostitution.

America is known as a country that welcomes people to its shores.

The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity.

I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at.

We belong to a group that historically has been the object of discrimination.

Work for what you believe in, but pick your battles, and don’t burn your bridges.

if you search the bible, you will find no reference to birth control or gay marriage, and you will not find a word, strangely, about stem cell research. I have searched.

I know that there are people who are secularists who have problems with the rights of gay people and problems with reproductive choice, but frankly those people are few in number.

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

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.

Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.

I wouldn’t want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court.

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,

I’m used to being in the minority. I’m a left-handed, gay Jew. I’ve never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.