If we support human rights, we cannot ignore legalized brutality against any group of our global community.
Kerry KennedyRead
We need autocracies and failing democracies alike to understand that they cannot scapegoat LGBT citizens to distract from their own shortcomings.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that governments cannot blame LGBT citizens for their own failures.
Kerry Kennedy highlights the misuse of marginalized groups, specifically LGBT citizens, as scapegoats by governments facing criticism for their inadequacies. The quote calls for a recognition of the unjust tactics used by autocracies and failing democracies that attempt to divert attention from their failures by targeting vulnerable populations, urging a more profound understanding and support for LGBT rights.
In practice
During a human rights campaign event, this quote can serve as a powerful reminder of the need to protect all citizens.
If we support human rights, we cannot ignore legalized brutality against any group of our global community.
We owe our children an environment in which they can flourish, and where law enforcement, the justice system, and society as offers them a fresh start, not a jail cell.
In my human-rights work, perhaps the most important thing is gaining the trust of the victims.
My father believed young people are among our nation's most valuable resources, and so we should ensure that every child - including children and youth returning from the justice system - have access to the opportunities we would want for our own children.
For too long, we've allowed ourselves to equate targeted bullying with innocent teasing, or dismissed it as pranks and ignored the torment and long-term impact that an incident like this has on young people.
While the One Child Policy has been effective in drastically reducing Chinese birth rates, the measures adopted in its name have required exhaustive, violent, insidious and systemic violations of human rights.
Demands that you believe the impossible do not lead to peaceful outcomes.
Progress without the reasoned freedom to think and act is regression to slavery.
I think that my darkest moment was the Iraq war and the fact that we could not stop it.
Not even old age knows how to love death.
For all the tribulations in our lives, for all the troubles that remain in the world, the decline of violence is an accomplishment that we can savor - and an impetus to cherish the forces of civilization and enlightenment that made it possible.
There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.
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