“This argument is not about sexual practices or particular lifestyles. It hinges on whether gay and lesbian Americans are entitled to the same enjoyment as their fellow citizens of the freedom to make choices about how to live their lives without suffering discrimination in consequence.”

— Michael Nava

Source: Non-fiction, Created equal: Why gay rights matter to America (1994), p.154

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "This argument is not about sexual practices or particular lifestyles. It hinges on whether gay and lesbian Americans ar…" by Michael Nava?

Michael Nava photo

Michael Nava38

American writer 1954

Related quotes

“The gay rights movement is not a party. It is not a lifestyle. It is not a hair style. It is not a fad or a fringe or a sickness. It is not about sin or salvation. The gay rights movement is an integral part of the American promise of freedom.”

Urvashi Vaid (1958) Indian writer

At the March on Washington, 4/25/93

“What gays and lesbians have to teach other Americans is that morality is how you live and how you conduct yourself, not what you happen to be.”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: Non-fiction, Created equal: Why gay rights matter to America (1994), p.142

“This struggle is not about sex. It is about privacy, individuality, and civil equality and the right of all Americans, not just gay and lesbian Americans, to be free.”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: Non-fiction, Created equal: Why gay rights matter to America (1994), p.4

“The choice you make this November will shape great things, historic things, and those things will determine the most intimate and important aspects of every American life and every American family. This is an election about America, and it is an election about the American family. All elections matter. This one matters a great deal. Over the years of our nation’s history, choices our fellow citizens have made have changed the country’s course–they were turning points of defining consequence.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-10-26
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2012/10/26/transcript-mitt-romney-delivers-speech-on-the-economy/
TRANSCRIPT: Mitt Romney Delivers Speech on the Economy
Fox News
2012

“Whether nature gives me a right, or whether God, the people's choice, etc., does so, all of that is the same foreign right, a right that I do not give or take to myself. Thus the Communists say, equal labour entitles man to equal enjoyment. […] No, equal labour does not entitle you to it, but equal enjoyment alone entitles you to equal enjoyment. Enjoy, then you are entitled to enjoyment. But, if you have laboured and let the enjoyment be taken from you, then – ‘it serves you right.’ If you take the enjoyment, it is your right; if, on the contrary, you only pine for it without laying hands on it, it remains as before, a, ‘well-earned right’ of those who are privileged for enjoyment. It is their right, as by laying hands on it would become your right.”

Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own

Cambridge 1995, p. 170, 171
The Ego and Its Own (1844)

“The Rainbow is making room for small farmers. They have suffered tremendously under the Reagan regime. They will either receive 90 percent parity or 100 percent charity. We must address their concerns and make room for them. The Rainbow includes lesbians and gays. No American citizen ought be denied equal protection from the law.”

Jesse Jackson (1941) African-American civil rights activist and politician

Address to the Democratic National Convention, 1984

“For many years, the single most potent weapon in the armoury of invisibility was the shame with which gay men and women were taught to regard their sexual nature. What kindles the fury of the antigay right at the gay and lesbian claim to equality and freedom is the implicit rejection of that shame. The energy released by that triumph over shame is what makes the movement so powerful. The gay and lesbian movement signals the existence of a people who have decided that they know more about themselves than what has been shoved down their throats by an ignorant and fearful society.”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: Non-fiction, Created equal: Why gay rights matter to America (1994), p.129-130

“The choices we make about the lives we live determine the kinds of legacies we leave.”

Tavis Smiley (1964) Talk show host, author, entrepreneur, advocate, philanthropist

Source: The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“[Speaking about same-sex marriage] It’s about familiarity, and I think the only reason they’re uncomfortable with the notion of same-sex marriages is because they haven’t come into contact with gay and lesbian couples enough to understand that it’s about love—and that it is a civil right.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Curve Magazine Interview (Summer 2009) http://www.curvemag.com/Curve-Magazine/Web-Articles-2008/Goodbye-to-Romance/.

“What defines a people is not race, not tradition, not geography, but the free choice of a group of human beings to live together as fellow citizens.”

Thomas G. West (1945) American academic

Source: 2000s, Vindicating the Founders (2001), p. 28

Related topics