Quotes About Advocacy

I led the fight for the Clinton health care plan in 1994. We failed. I learned from that experience. What I learned is you can't pass a complicated government-run plan.

I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people.

Despite the fact that important measures such as the Americans with Disabilities Act passed only with crucial Republican support, the public - and the community of disability advocates - normally identifies this issue with the Democratic party.

There are a lot of great animal rights organizations who save dogs and save cats, but the Humane Society is actually really good at working with Congress and getting legislation actually passed.

I've taken legislation that people have been trying to pass for 10 or 15 years, and I got it passed.

My dad spent most of the '50s and early '60s actually acting as sort of an advance man for the Justice Department, as a civil rights lawyer. So it was actually reading his papers after he passed away a few years ago that first started me thinking about this... What fraction of your life do you spend in service to your fellow man?

Andy and I decided to get married in August of 2014, and just 4 days after we married, he passed away. For me, I carry my relationship with Andy with me in my LGBT advocacy work.

Instead of moving backward, we should expand opportunity and protections by repealing hateful laws and passing comprehensive LGBT nondiscrimination laws at the local, state, and federal level.

The truth of faith is not articulated in offering reasons for suffering, but rather in drawing alongside those who suffer, standing with them, and standing up for them. This is pastoral care at its most luminous.

To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, and the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.

We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves.

I would not question the sincerity of vegetarians who take little interest in Animal Liberation because they give priority to other causes; but when nonvegetarians say that "human problems come first" I cannot help wondering what exactly it is that they are doing for human beings that compels them to continue to support the wasteful, ruthless exploitation of farm animals.

Personal purity isn't really the issue. Not supporting animal abuse – and persuading others not to support it – is.

a strike in the era of globalization must be vigorously supported by allies near and far and exceptionally well managed.

Children wish to be engaged with directly, even when a parent is willing to speak for them.

I work very hard for my clients...I don't always win their cases, but I always give them 100% of my effort and I have gotten more good results than bad.

That made me remember why I got into this business in the first place-to protect people who couldn't protect themselves.

Perhaps most important, we need to support women who have fought back against their batterers and rapists and are wasting away in jail for daring to save their own lives. They are political prisoners and should be honored as such—not seen as pathological masochists who "chose" to stay until they "chose" to kill.

And we have done more in the two and a half years that I've been in here than the previous 43 Presidents to uphold that principle, whether it's ending 'don't ask, don't tell,' making sure that gay and lesbian partners can visit each other in hospitals, making sure that federal benefits can be provided to same-sex couples.

When you are the parent of someone who is a chronic pain sufferer, you end up creating these binders for all of the hospital stays so you can keep track of every visit and any new thing that comes out.

You can't just pillory the teachers unions and sound the free market trumpet. We must visit the failing schools. We must talk to the mother who desperately wants more for her child and offer a constructive way out. We can't simply lambaste... food stamps or decry dependency.

Puerto Ricans, it doesn't matter where they live, it doesn't matter how long it's been since they visited the island, their hearts are there. If you keep them informed, and if you say to them, 'This is important for Puerto Rico, go and call your congressman,' they do it. They do it.

No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed.

There are still civil rights issues. There are still people who can't be visited by their spouse in the hospital because they're gay. These are humanitarian issues. At the end of the day, all you want is for people to be happy in the pursuit of life, love and liberty.