List of Sexual Diversity LGBTQ+ Quotes
Author: SexualDiversity.org
Author Contact: Sexual Diversity (SexualDiversity.org)
Published: 2nd Nov 2014 - Updated: 25th Oct 2022
Peer-Reviewed Publication: N/A
Additional References: Education and LGBT Publications
Summary: List of uplifting quotations regarding sexual diversity, inclusion, and famous LGBT quotes.
Main Document
"Soon the day will come when science will win victory over error, justice a victory over injustice, and human love a victory over human hatred and ignorance." - Magnus Hircshfeld.
- "At the end of the day it doesn't matter which group is most oppressed or whether they are identically oppressed, what matters is that no group be oppressed." - Keith Boykin / President of The National Black Justice Coalition
- "Discrimination is discrimination no matter who the victim is, and it is always wrong. There are no special rights in America, despite the attempts by many to divide blacks and the gay community with the argument that the latter are seeking some imaginary special rights at the expense of blacks. " - Julian Bond / NAACP Board Chairman
- "From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people." - Howard Dean
- "Homosexuality in Russia is a crime and the punishment is seven years in prison, locked up with the other men. There is a three year waiting list." - Yakov Smirnoff
- "Homosexuality is regarded as shameful by barbarians and by those who live under despotic governments just as philosophy is regarded as shameful by them, because it is apparently not in the interest of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or passionate love - all of which homosexuality is particularly apt to produce."
- "I am in the valley of prayer on the issue of gay marriage, and I will err on the side of inclusiveness and not exclusion. I'm going to follow Jesus and say, Whosoever will, let them come. And I'm going to extend rights to all of God's children and if I am wrong, God will have to judge me. - Rev. Joseph Lowery / Founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- "I don't think homosexuality is a choice. Society forces you to think it's a choice, but in fact, it's in one's nature. The choice is whether one expresses one's nature truthfully or spends the rest of one's life lying about it." - Marlo Thomas
- "If you are not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities the expression of love then life itself loses its meaning." - Harvey Milk
- "In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation." - Simone de Beauvoir
- "It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime, and cruelty too" - Sigmund Freud
- "Soon the day will come when science will win victory over error, justice a victory over injustice, and human love a victory over human hatred and ignorance." - Magnus Hircshfeld
- "There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it's now okay to express ourselves publicly. We make that day by doing things publicly until it's simply the way things are." - Tammy Baldwin
- "We've made houses for hatred. It's time we made a place where people's souls may be seen and made safe." - Jewel Kilcher
- "All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential." - Harvey Milk
- "As anyone who is gay will confirm, being that way is not something you become, it is a set of emotional and physical responses that just are." - Lance Loud
- "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
- "Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night." - Woody Allen
- "Closets are for clothes." - Bumper sticker
- "Did you hear about the Scottish drag queen? He wore pants." - Lynn Lavne
- "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
- "Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness." - Shakti Gawain
- "Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality." - James Baldwin
- "Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality." - James Baldwin
- "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." - Barry Goldwater
- "Few contemporary cultures are as hostile to homosexuality as America's is." - Myron Brenton / Writer, The American Male
- "For many years now, I have been an outspoken supporter of civil and human rights for gay and lesbian people. Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions." - Coretta Scott King
- "For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law.... I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' On another occasion he said, 'I have worked too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible.' Like Martin, I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others. The great promise of American democracy is that no group of people will be forced to suffer discrimination and injustice." - Coretta Scott King
- "Gay and lesbian people fall in love. We settle down. We commit our lives to one another. We raise our children. We protect them. We try to be good citizens." - California Sen. Sheila Kuehl After California Senate approved gay marriage bill
- "Growing up, I felt there was something about me that truly set me apart from other kids. But I didn't have a grasp of what it was. I had a few fleeting crushes on girls, then, a full-blown crush. Inside, they felt right and normal. But at the same time, I didn't have any way to process those feelings because I didn't know any gay people or know that I knew them. I felt that I would risk something if I expressed my feelings. Then I started playing on my college rugby team - which had some lesbian players - and for the first time I saw women being openly affectionate to each other. It was like being dropped into what was originally a foreign country but, once there, I realized it was my country of origin. I thought, Wow, the feelings I've been having are normal. It is okay to be who I am." - Candace Gingrich / Manager of HRC's National Coming Out Project / Sister of Former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich
- "Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group." - Coretta Scott King
- "Homophobia: The irrational fear the three fags will break into your house and redecorate it against your will." - Tom Ammiano / Comic
- "Homosexuality is God's way of insuring that the truly gifted aren't burdened with children." - Sam Austin / Composer & Lyricist
- "How dare you make my life a felony." - Sign held at 1987 Sandra Day O' Connor speech
- "I always have and still do consider myself queer. To me, being queer isn't who you're sleeping with; it's just an idea that sexuality isn't gender-based, that it's love-based." - Ani DiFranco
- "I am reminded of a colleague who reiterated all my homosexual patients are quite sick - to which I finally replied so are all my heterosexual patients. - Ernest van den Haag / Psychotherapist
- "I am the love that dare not speak its name." - Lord Alfred Douglas / From poem Two Loves
- "I believe that gender is something between your ears, not between your legs." - Chaz Bono
- "I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or who you love. It doesn't matter whether you're black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you're willing to try." - President Barack Obama
- "I desire a person, not a gender." - Matthew Ehrlich / Writer
- "I do not have to be a woman to believe in women's rights. I do not have to be an Asian, an African American, a Latino, or Native-American to believe in civil rights. I do not have to be gay to believe in gay, lesbian and bisexual rights. But I do have to be a human being to believe in human rights." - Activist Saying
- "I don't think there is such a thing as a precise sexual orientation. I think we're all ambiguous sexually." - Tennessee Williams / Playwright
- "I don't mind straight people as long as they act gay in public." - Dennis Rodman
- "I don't mind straight people as long as they act gay in public." - T-shirt Worn by Chicago Bulls transvestite Dennis Rodman during a network-TV interview
- "I get sick of listening to straight people complain about, Well, hey, we don't have a heterosexual-pride day, why do you need a gay-pride day? I remember when I was a kid I'd always ask my mom: Why don't we have a Kid's Day? We have a Mother's Day and a Father's Day, but why don't we have a Kid's Day? My mom would always say, Every day is Kid's Day. To all those heterosexuals that bitch about gay pride, I say the same thing: Every day is heterosexual-pride day! Can't you people enjoy your banquet and not piss on those of us enjoying our crumbs over here in the corner?" - Rob Nash
- "I just wish more of my fellow queers would come out sometimes. It's nice out here, you know?" - Elton John / Accepting Distinguished Achievement Award from Elizabeth Taylor at Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center's 25th anniversary blowout
- "I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice. But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people." - Coretta Scott King
- "I think gay people are like blondes: There're fewer of them but they have more fun." - Rita Mae Brown / Writer
- "I think it's interesting that when you play a lesbian, people ask you if you're a lesbian, but if you play a serial killer, nobody asks you if you're a serial killer." - Nora Dunn / Actress
- "I wanted to be out so I could relax and be me." - Melissa Etheridge / Musician
- "I'm not willing to be tolerated. That wounds my love of love and liberty." - Jean Cocteau / Writer and Director
- "I'd rather be black than gay because when you're black you don't have to tell your mother." - Charles Pierce
- "I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant." - Paul Newman
- "I'm homosexual. How and why are idle questions. It's a little like wanting to know why my eyes are green." - Jean Genet
- "I'm proud that I was one of the first ones out, singing loud and proud." - KD Lang
- "I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy. The civil rights movement thrives on unity and inclusion, not division and exclusion. My husband's struggle parallels that of the gay rights movement." - Coretta Scott King
- "If gay and lesbian people are given civil rights, then everyone will want them!" - Author unknown / As seen on a button
- "If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise." - Johann von Goethe
- "If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise." - Johann von Goethe
- "If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work: Hello. Can't work today, still queer." - Robin Tyler
- "If Michelangelo had been straight, the Sistine Chapel would have been wallpapered." - Robin Tyler
- "If you dream of a world in which you can put your partner's picture on your desk, then put her picture on your desk...and you will live in such a world. And if you dream of a world in which you can walk down the street holding your partner's hand, then hold her hands...and you will live in such a world. If you dream of a world in which there are more openly gay elected officials, then run for office...and you will live in such a world. And if you dream of a world in which you can take your partner to the office party, even if your office is the US House of Representatives, then take her to the party. I do, and now I live in such a world. Remember, there are two things that keep us oppressed - them and us. We are half of the equation." - Tammy Baldwin, US Congress
- "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King , Jr.
- "Is life not a hundred times too short for us to stifle ourselves." - Friedrich Nietzsche
- "It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality. It's like disapproving of rain." - Francis Maude
- "It is better to be hated for what one is than to be loved for what one isn't." - Andre Gider / Writer
- "It is long past time to eliminate bigotry in the workplace and to ensure equal opportunity for all Americans. It is time to make clear that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans are first class citizens. They are full and welcome members of our American family and they deserve the same civil rights protections as all other Americans. It is time for us to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Such discrimination is wrong and should not be tolerated." - Senator Tom Harkin
- "It is never legitimate to use the words of scripture to promote a loveless agenda." - Right Rev. Dr. Peter Short / Moderator of United Church of Canada
- "It took the Catholic Church 359 years to admit that they were wrong when they accused Galileo of heresy and condemned him to death, unless he recanted that the earth rotates around the sun. Since he wanted to live, he was forced to deny the truth and agree with the Church that the sun rotates around the earth, but he was still placed under house arrest until his death.
- "It wasn't easy telling my parents that I'm gay. I told them at Thanksgiving. I said "Mom would you please pass the gravy to a homosexual?" She passed it to my father. A terrible scene followed." - Bob Smith / Member of the comedy group, Funny Gay Males
- "It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy." - Lucille Ball
- "It's great to be out and proud." - Greg Louganis / Olympic gold-medal diver at Gay Games opening ceremonies
- "Lesbians of color should be visible as possible. We are a part of the movement and are sometimes invisible." - Banda Goddard, marcher at gay rally -
- "My mother took me to a psychiatrist when I was fifteen because she thought I was a latent homosexual. There was nothing latent about it."
- "No government has the right to tell its citizens when or whom to love. The only queer people are those who don't love anybody." - Rita Mae Brown, speech, 28 August 1982
- "Our sexual orientation is a given, something we discover about ourselves. Some might say it is a gift from God. How one relates to others (caring or exploiting) is the source of sin." - Bishop Wood / Episcopalian
- "Outing is a nasty word for telling the truth." - Armistead Maupin / Writer
- "Protect marriage? Puhlease. With a 50 percent divorce rate, rampant domestic violence, Las Vegas drive-through chapels, and I wanna-marry-a-really-rich-guy reality TV shows, there's no way gays could trash marriage the way straight people have." - Good Times / Santa Cruz County News
- "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible." - Jamin Raskin, getting to the point, in a debate over a proposed constitutional amendment to the Maryland state constitution to prevent gay couples from having legal marriage rights
- "Silence kills the soul; it diminishes its possibilities to rise and fly and explore. Silence withers what makes you human. The soul shrinks, until it's nothing." - Marlon Riggs / Filmmaker
- "Some argue that since homosexual behavior is "unnatural," it is contrary to the order of creation. Behind this pronouncement are stereotypic definitions of masculinity and femininity that reflect the rigid gender categories of patriarchal society. There is nothing unnatural about any shared love, even between two of the same gender, if that experience calls both partners into a fuller state of being. Contemporary research is uncovering new facts that are producing a rising conviction that homosexuality, far from being a sickness, sin, perversion or unnatural act, is a healthy natural, and affirming of human sexuality for some people. Findings indicate that homosexuality is a given fact in the nature of a significant portion of people, and that it is unchangeable."
- "Straight Americans need an education of the heart and soul. They must understand - to begin with - how it can feel to spend years denying your own deepest truths, to sit silently through classes, meals, and church services while people you love toss off remarks that brutalize your soul." - Bruce Bawer
- "The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision." - Lynn Lavner
- "The Church is powerful and has a history of pressuring society and individuals to say and believe what "the Church" thinks is right. They were wrong then and they are wrong now regarding homosexuality. Let's hope it doesn't take them that long this time to discover and admit their error." - ChristianGay.Com
- "The consecration of Gene Robinson as bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese of the Episcopal Church is an affront to Christians everywhere. I am just thankful that the church's founder, Henry VIII, and his wife Catherine of Aragon, and his wife Anne Boleyn, and his wife Jane Seymour, and his wife Anne of Cleves, and his wife Katherine Howard, and his wife Catherine Parr are no longer here to suffer through this assault on traditional Christian marriage."
- "The day we stop resisting our instincts, we'll have learned how to live. - Federico Garicia Lorca / Poet and Playwright
- "The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye: the more light you pour on it, the more it will contract." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. / American Jurist
- "The most violent element in society is ignorance." - Emma Goldman
- "The next time you feel you have to say, "I love you" to someone, say it to yourself - and see if you believe it." - Harvey Feirstein / Playwright, Torchsong Trilogy
- "The opportunity to be threatened, humiliated and to live in fear of being beaten to death is the only 'special right' our culture bestows on homosexuals." - Diane Carman / Denver Post
- "The opportunity to be threatened, humiliated and to live in fear of being beaten to death is the only 'special right' our culture bestows on homosexuals." - Diane Carman / Denver Post
- "The people who would forbid gays from marrying in the country are those who would have made Rosa Parks sit in the back of the bus." - Jason West / Mayor of New Paltz, NY
- "The Scriptures have been misused to defend bloody crusades and inquisitions; to support slavery, apartheid, and segregation; to sanction the physical and emotional abuse of women and children; to persecute Jews and other non-Christian people of faith; to support the holocaust of Hitler's Third Reich; to oppose medical science; to condemn inter-racial marriage; to execute women as witches; to excuse the violent racism of the Ku Klux Klan; to mobilize militias, white supremacy and neo-nazi movements; and to condone intolerance and discrimination against sexual minorities. " - Mel White / Letter to Jerry Falwell
- "The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century... unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today." - John F. Kennedy
- "The world changes in direct proportion to the number of people willing to be honest about their lives." - Armistead Maupin / Writer
- "There are easier things in life than being a drag queen. But I ain't got no choice. Try as I may, I just can't walk in flats." - Harvey Fierstein / Filmmaker
- "There are some people in this world that believe being gay is a choice. It's not a choice, we're born this way." - Lady Gaga
- "There is nothing in the Bible or in my own theology that would lead me to believe that God regards homosexuality as sin. God is interested in our relationships with ourselves, others, the things in our lives, and with God. There is nothing in the mind of God that could be against a loving, sexual relationship, freely entered into, without coercion, among sincere adults whether gay, bisexual or straight." - Dr. Slayton / Baptist
- "There's nothing I need from anyone except love and respect, and anyone who can't give me those two things has no place in my life." - Harvey Fierstein / Playwright, Torch Song Trilogy
- "There's nothing wrong with being gay, so to deny it is to make a judgment." - Keanu Reeves / Actor
- "There's this illusion that homosexuals have sex and heterosexuals fall in love. That's completely untrue. Everybody wants to be loved." - Boy George
- "They have every right to be as miserable as the rest of us." - Kinky Friedman (mystery novelist and former frontman for Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys bluegrass band, who is running for Governor of Texas as an Independent and supports gay marriage)
- "To compare rich, privileged homosexual lobby groups allied with transsexuals and sadomasochists to brave civil rights crusaders who risked their lives to advance freedom insults every black American who overcame real injustice and poverty. It's time for the homosexual lobby to stop co-opting the black civil rights struggle. The [National Gay and Lesbian] Task Force's agenda of promoting perversion including public homosexual sex, sadomasochism and bisexuality would offend the vast majority of African-Americans who understand the difference between God-designed racial distinctions and changeable, immoral behavior." - Sandy Rios / CWA President
- "We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be." - Martin Luther King Jr.
- "We have a lot more work to do in our common struggle against bigotry and discrimination. I say "common struggle" because I believe very strongly that all forms of bigotry and discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere. Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination." - Coretta Scott King
- "We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity." - David Brooks / New York Times
- "What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains." - Tennessee Williams. Streetcar Named Desire
- "Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it; it is yourself." - Jean Cocteau / writer
- "When my friends and I came out in college, the other students took an obvious dislike to us. It was hateful. horrible rhetoric - and divisive. I lost some friends. I felt like they just couldn't step up to the plate. It was very hard - really hard - to deal with that, and to tell them that they were not being very supportive. You learn many valuable lessons about what friendship means. It's those first five minutes in coming out to your friends and acquaintances that are really the hardest. But after that - things get better than before. The most important thing you can do is come out. People's hearts have to change - and when a person meets someone who is gay, that more than anything seems to make them understand and take on new attitudes." - Suzanne Westenhofer / Comedian
- "When people have asked me in the past if I'm gay, I've said "I'm not gay, but I'm festive." - Sharon Gless / Actress
- "Whenever a society wants to demonize a particular group, it prohibits them from marrying." - California Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl on state governments legislating against gay marriages
- "While many minority groups are the target for prejudice... and discrimination... in our society, few persons face this hostility without the support and acceptance of their family as do many gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth."
- "You always have to remember - no matter what you're told - that God loves all the flowers, even the wild ones that grow on the side of the highway." - Cyndi Lauper / Musician
- "You cannot demand your rights, civil or otherwise, if you are unwilling to say what you are." - Merle Miller / Writer
- "You could move." - Abigail Van Buren, "Dear Abby," in response to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood
- "You just can't say lesbianism hurts women's golf. It's more correct to say homophobia does." - Donna Lopiano / Executive Director of the Women's Sprots Foundation
- "You're kidding. You really are queer. But you're so attractive." - Leslie Ann Warren / Actress, from the film Victor/Victoria
- My sexual orientation is not a sickness to be healed or a sin to be forgiven. My sexual orientation is a gift from my Creator to be accepted, celebrated, and lived with integrity.
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