Unlike people of my generation, my children and my grandchildren have grown up living with, knowing, people who were outwardly gay and lesbian. And they have learned that they're just like us... And when you see that they're just like us, the rationale for discrimination melts away.
Interpretation
David Boies highlights the importance of exposure to diversity in dismantling discrimination.
In this quote, David Boies reflects on how his children and grandchildren's understanding of LGBTQ+ individuals transforms their perception of them, recognizing that they share the same humanity. This familiarity challenges and ultimately diminishes the rationale for discrimination, suggesting that knowledge and acceptance are critical in fostering a more inclusive society.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about LGBTQ+ rights can highlight the importance of visibility and acceptance.
One of the things that the court held in Brown v. Board of Education is that government can't impose a badge of inferiority on some of its citizens. Yet that is exactly what Proposition 8 does with respect to gay and lesbian couples in California.
It's terribly important that we extend the promise of equality that the Supreme Court and that the district court articulated in the DOMA case and in the Perry case to all Americans in all 50 states.
The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision.
We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost.
We're now segregating our schools based on economics; we're segregating our schools based on where a child's parents live. And it has the same corrosive effect of destroying people's opportunity as racial segregation did.
I talk to the audience, look into their eyes. I need them and they need me.
If the best of one's feelings means nothing to the person most concerned in those feelings, what reality is left us?
Dumbledore paused, and although his voice remained light and calm, and he gave no obvious sign of anger, Harry felt a kind of chill emanating from him and noticed that the Dursleys drew very slightly closer together. “You did not do as I asked. You have never treated Harry as a son. He has known nothing but neglect and often cruelty at your hands. The best that can be said is that he has at least escaped the appalling damage you have inflicted upon the unfortunate boy sitting between you.
A lot of times, we talk about black people as if being black is all they are. They get up, go to work... and are as complex and interesting and variable as any other group of people. We don't often capture that or write about it.
We live in a society where we may have differences, of course, but we learn to celebrate these differences.
When I was little, my friends would gush over wedding gowns and honeymoons. But I saw too many people flush decades together down the toilet over money or kids or meaningless flings. My own parents chose to stay married, which I think is rather funny, since they show about as much affection for each other as pit bulls in a ring. Tying the knot means slipping a noose around love and choking it to death.
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