Quotes & Sayings About Marriage Equality

Marriage equality is a very middle-class issue and voting rights is a very working-class issue. If you do not vote, who are you speaking for? Who will be the next Fannie Lou Hamer? If not you or someone you know, then who? — Darryl Pinckney

I'm an American for marriage equality. I believe that love comes in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. So whether you're LGBT or straight, your love is valid, beautiful, and an incredible gift. — Demi Lovato

Public attitudes follow real life experience, and as marriage equality has spread to more communities, Americans have seen more freedom, stronger families, more protection for children and more fairness. — Ken Mehlman

The novel had reached its apogee with the marriage plot and had never recovered from its disappearance. In the days when success in life had depended on marriage, and marriage had depended on money, novelists had had a subject to write about. The great epics sang of war, the novel of marriage. Sexual equality, good for women, had been bad for the novel. And divorce had undone it completely. What would it matter whom Emma married if she could file for separation later? How would Isabel Archer's marriage to Gilbert Osmond have been affected by the existence of a prenup? As far as Saunders was concerned, marriage didn't mean much anymore, and neither did the novel. Where could you find the marriage plot nowadays? You couldn't. You had to read historical fiction. You had to read non-Western novels involving traditional societies. Afghani novels, Indian novels. You had to go, literarily speaking, back in time. — Jeffrey Eugenides

In love; it's only those who trust each other, who can make it until the end. — Auliq Ice

Well, my view before was a Western view, and I certainly understand marriage equality and civil rights, equal rights for all, but having visited developing nations and some of the poorest nations in the world, I realize how deep it goes and how much work really needs to be done to create equality for all. — Jason Mraz

I oppose same-sex marriage and civil unions but I support domestic partnership between gay and lesbian couples. I have no problem with gay and lesbian couples adopting. I support equal benefits for same-sex couples such as hospital visitation rights — Mitt Romney

The widely held belief that the heterosexual nuclear family is best for children has long been used as a smoke screen for homophobia and as a talking point to quash marriage-equality efforts. — Jessica Valenti

This president [Obama] has done more for the LGBT community than any president in history. It's just an objective fact. And his legacy is secure in terms of the advancement of the rights of the LGBT community, from Don't Ask, Don't Tell to his support for overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, and of course marriage equality, work on HIV and AIDS, and other things. — Gavin Newsom

Today's decision affirms what we all know to be true - the U.S. Constitution guarantees the basic civil rights of all Americans, not just some. Utah's ban on marriage equality does nothing to strengthen or protect any marriage. Instead, it singles out thousands of loving Utah families for unfair treatment simply because of who they are. Our Constitution does not allow for such blatant discrimination. — Chad Griffin

For some of my friends who raise personal objections to marriage equality, they still recognize the importance of being accepting. And many of them also recognize that regardless of what they choose to believe or practice at home or at their church, that doesn't give them the right to discriminate. — Scott Fujita

I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being
neither white, black, brown, or red; and when you are dealing with humanity as a family there's no question of integration or intermarriage. It's just one human being marrying another human being or one human being living around and with another human being. — Malcolm X

The Obama years will be remembered as a cultural - and legal - tipping point for equality for all people who do not identify as strictly heterosexual, arguably the civil rights movement of our times. The president signed the bill repealing 'don't ask, don't tell.' The Defense of Marriage Act was struck down by the Supreme Court. — Charles M. Blow

How many more gay people must God create until we realize that he wants them here? — Kaniela Ing

If anybody can find someone to love them and to help them through this difficult thing that we call life, I support that in any shape or form — Will Smith

Marriage equality is the law of the land. Officials should be held to their duty to uphold the law-end of story. — Hillary Clinton

Remember that the successful marriage depends on two things: (1) finding the right person and (2) being the right person. — Carrie Snow

I oppose same-sex marriage but I would advance equal rights in employment for gay and lesbian people. I appointed a few judges who were gay and I had few people in my cabinet that I found out were gay. I never asked peoples sexual orientation. — Mitt Romney

In the 1960s we were fighting to be recognized as equals in the marketplace, in marriage, in education and on the playing field. It was a very exciting, rebellious time. — Marlo Thomas

You want one civil war, brah? — Tom Brower

When all Americans are treated as equal, we are all more free. — Barack Obama

It is each American's constitutional right to marry the person they love, no matter what state they inhabit. No state should decide who can marry and who cannot. Thanks to the tireless work of so many, someday soon this discrimination will end and every American will be able to enjoy their equal right to marriage. — Brad Pitt

Yet he hadn't asked for anything that he hadn't been willing to give himself. - Mahri — Kathryne Kennedy

When the battle is long and hard the victory is even sweeter — Anthony Venn-Brown

I couldn't help but think about Election Day one year before and everything that had happened since. Last Election Day, not only had the country reelected the first president who had stood for marriage equality, but we'd also won ballot fights on marriage in four — Marc Solomon

Well, my personal mission statement is that we want marriage equality in all 50 states. We want it not to be a state-by-state issue. We don't want it to be something the majority is voting on. I don't think the civil rights of any minority should be in the hands of any majority. — Jesse Tyler Ferguson

On a serious note, I stand by Obama on marriage equality! I believe ALL families deserve the same rights — Connor Barwin

Marriage, home life, and children, ought to be enjoyed by men and women together. Nobody - and least of all the child - is served by the present tendency to put these things all on one side as 'Woman's World. — Alva Myrdal

LEONATO
Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.
BEATRICE
Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred. — William Shakespeare

I genuinely believe that we will look back on today as a landmark for equality in Britain ... No matter who you are and who you love, we are all equal. Marriage is about love and commitment, and it should no longer be denied to people just because they are gay. — Nick Clegg

Do you want to get married someday?" he persists.
And never have anything of my own? "Lord, no. [ ... ] — Rae Carson

I'm an activist for gay marriage equality and children's rights. I'm the face of Share Our Strength. — Sandra Lee

Significantly, in future feminist movement we will spend less time critiquing patriarchal marriage bonds and expend more effort showing alternatives, showing the value of peer relationships which are founded on principles of equality, respect, and the belief that mutual satisfaction and growth are needed for partnerships to be fulfilling and lasting. — Bell Hooks

Something as important as marriage equality, which is now a constitutional right [in the USA], is something that cannot be denied. It's also very un-Christian, if you think about the way Christ was and Christ's teachings. This is not loving. This is anger. This is hatred. This is bigotry. And it's wrong. — Margaret Cho

The marriage-equality issue should be recognized for what it truly is - a civil rights issue that must be approved to assure that every citizen is treated equally under the law. — Bruce Springsteen

For the hundreds of thousands of Californians in gay and lesbian households who are managing their day-to-day lives, this decision affirms the full legal protections and safeguards I believe everyone deserves. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Love is not self-seeking.
Love is not easily angered. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Mr. Christ, I read you as an infinitely patient entity who, as they say, often works in mysterious ways, a rebel unafraid to take the tougher, less traveled paths. Seems to me you're playing the long game. Is that why more states are coming out in favor of marriage equality? Is that why the Affordable Care Act is now with us? — Henry Rollins

I want to stay on the subject of marriage equality because this is the part of the show that everybody loves but you hate if you're the one who has to hear your own voice. — Dahlia Lithwick

In articulating all my feelings about marriage equality, I almost don't know where to begin. And perhaps that's part of the problem. Why do we have to explain ourselves when it comes to issues of fairness and equality? Why is common sense not enough? — Scott Fujita

Chains of gold are still chains. — Robert Thier

Marriage is supposed to be a union between two equals who love and support each other, not a master-slave relationship in which the man commands a docile woman. — Robert Thier

After lengthy consideration, my views have evolved sufficiently to support marriage equality legislation. This position doesn't require any religious denomination to alter any of its tenets; it simply forbids government from discrimination regarding who can marry whom. — Tim Johnson

The momma bears are demanding, 'Protect our kids.' — Gene Ward

If heterosexual people can get married then gay and lesbian people can get married too — Paul Martin

I definitely think we should all have the right to love, and love publicly, the people we want to love. — Carrie Underwood

In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. That is my doctrine. You are married; try and make the woman you love happy. Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says 'I will make her happy,' makes no mistake. And so with the woman who says, 'I will make him happy.' There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so. — Robert G. Ingersoll

It is at least a small comfort to me, as a gay rights and marriage equality advocate, to know that like any marriage, gay and lesbian couples are subject to the same complications and hardships that afflict marriages between heterosexual couples, — Gene Robinson

The storm and stress period of women and the new social and psychological formations thereby entailed must indeed extend far into the twentieth century. This period of conflict will cease only when woman within and out of marriage shall have received legal equality with man. — Ellen Key

In my heart, I know that marriage equality for every human being isn't a question of if, but only a matter of when. I ask those who feel that giving freedom to others somehow binds you, to please take a good look at what you are standing behind — Russell Simmons

True Christians are not bigoted and this is actually not a matter of equality, no matter how often it is referred to as equal marriage. Civil partnerships are equal to marriage - they might not have the same name but they are equal. — Robert Flello

Montanans believe in the right to make a good life for their families. How they define a family should be their business and their business alone. I'm proud to support marriage equality because no one should be able to tell a Montanan or any American who they can love and who they can marry. — Jon Tester

In my life, I have been told that as a gay man I am a threat to the American family. I have been told that to accept me as an equal is an insult to God. I have been told that I am no better than a pedophile. I have been told that I cannot serve in the military because my presence will undermine unit cohesion. I have had bottles thrown at me when I gathered with others to protest for marriage equality. I have been told that I am sick, that I am damaged, and that I am damage and sickness incarnate.

Let the record show that what finally made me snap is the suggestion that I was supposed to have chemistry with Tori Spelling. — Dave Holmes

It's been six months, Nancy.'
'What's your hurry? It took me a year to get used to living with Carl. I mean, what do men do anyway? They work, eat, drink, and play games. Sex for them is in the sports and recreation category. You can't live with a man and not be lonely.'
'You think so?'
'Absolutely. Besides, once you have kids, it all changes anyway. Everything seems to make sense then. — Andre Dubus III

I've praised Obama's record on same-sex equality as enthusiastically as anyone: it's one area where his record has been impressive. I understand, and have expressed, the emotional importance for LGBT Americans of his marriage announcement as well as its political significance. — Glenn Greenwald

I prefer to think of marriage as an equality of give and take. — Mary Balogh

Marriage equality does not diminish the worth of your relationships; it simply recognises the worth of ours. — Penny Wong

Happy that New York passed marriage equality tonight. A victory for human rights. Progress. — John Legend

Marriage equality changed life for people. — Andrew Cuomo

The presumption that the law can tell us what natural institution is supposed to be is a formula for totalitarianism. There's not equality in a family; there never is. And yet for that reason, the family is condemned as patriarchal. The goal of this sort of legislation is about the destruction of the traditional family, not just marriage. — Francis George

I just want to be clear before we decide to do this together: I'm gay. My music is gay. My show is gay. And I love that it's gay. And I love my gay fans, and they're all going to be coming to our show. And it's going to remain gay. — Lady Gaga

But perhaps the next step isn't to, once again, expand the otherwise narrow definition of marriage but to altogether abolish the false distinction between married families and other equally valid but unrecognized partnerships. — Sally Kohn

Say yes,' he whispers. 'Marry me.'

I hesitate. I open my eyes. 'You will get my fortune,' I remark. 'When I marry you, everything I have becomes yours. Just as George has everything that belongs to Isabel.'

'That's why you can trust me to win it for you,' he says simply. 'When your interests and mine are the same, you can be certain that I will care for you as for myself. You will be my own. You will find that I care for my own.'

'You will be true to me?'

'Loyalty is my motto. When I give my word, you can trust me. — Philippa Gregory

While the President [Barack Obama] did a good thing when he said he personally supported equal marriage, he then quickly backed away and said that he wasn't going to do anything about it - that it was a state matter, and that he wasn't going to interfere, as opposed to being than being a real advocate for equality across the board in marriage. He also, I think two weeks prior to that statement, refused to sign an executive order to establish equal rights in the workplace for the LGBT community. — Jill Stein

I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don't see much of a distinction beyond that. — Joe Biden

Oh dear, you are confusing molecular science with ancient history. — Dean Hamer

Barack Obama's decision to come out in favour of gay marriage may be a historic occasion, but it is not an isolated one. His administration has been making pro-gay noises for some time; his demographic in the upcoming election is young and educated, precisely the group that favours equality for the LGBT community. — Edmund White

I have never been prouder to be a lifelong New Yorker than I am today with the passage of marriage equality. — Cyndi Lauper

The present relationship existing between husband and wife, where one claims a command over the actions of the other, is nothing more than a remnant of the old leaven of slavery. It is necessarily destructive of refined love; for how can a man continue to regard as his type of the ideal a being whom he has, be denying an equality of privilege with himself, degraded to something below himself? — Herbert Spencer

Marriage equality is coming, and not merely to a theater near you. — Suzanne Brockmann

I think, for one, the LGBTQ community is just a paragon of leadership, of standing up and saying "these are our rights, and we deserve them." As a model of activism, it's so wonderful what the community has been able to achieve towards goals like marriage equality. — Jill Stein

It is the prospect of being close to you that makes marriage partly attractive. I can imagine the equality which we would then enjoy, it would mean more to you than any other type of equality, and be more beautiful. I could be a son who was freer, more thankful, less guilty, and more upright; you could be a father who was less troubled, less tyrannical, more sympathetic, and more content. But to reach this point all that has happened would need to be undone; so we would need to be abolished. But we are as we are, and marriage is your domain and so it is forbidden to me. At times I imagine the map of the world laid out and you stretched across it. And all that is left for my life are the areas you don't cover or can't reach. And because I see you as a giant, my territory is miserable and small and doesn't include marriage. I — Franz Kafka

What makes you think I ever got married? Married women work themselves to death, all their money goes to husbands who gamble it away. Why would I ever do that to myself? — Kim Van Alkemade

All of us, wherever we happen to stand on the marriage equality issue, can agree that all our children deserve the opportunity to live in a loving, caring, committed, and stable home, protected equally under the law. — Martin O'Malley

This is a proud day and an important step forward in the fight for equality in Britain. The overwhelming majority of Labour MPs supported this change to make sure marriage reflects the value we place on long-term, loving relationships whoever you love. — Ed Miliband

You can't claim to support equality and not support equal rights." - on Supreme Court's consideration of gay marriage, April 27, 2015 — Chamois Holschuh

Marriage is a language of love, equality, and inclusion. — Evan Wolfson

You talk like there is no church or laws. Like you want to marry me. — Val Kovalin

I'm not here to promote your pride. — Jo Jordan

For me, marriage should be about partnership. How can you love someone you have to take care of like a child all the time? A wife is supposed to be a partner, and yes partners help each other when they need it, but they are supposed to be together because they want to in my book, not because one needs the other. — Lynsay Sands

Americans have swapped the awkward phrase "same-sex marriage" for the term "marriage equality." The phrase is ordinarily employed to mean that same-sex couples will have the rights different-sexed couples do. But it could also mean that marriage is between equals. That's not what traditional marriage was. — Rebecca Solnit

Why did mainstream America come to accept marriage equality? Gay leaders had made a convincing case that gay families were like straight families and should have the same rights. The American spirit of fair play had been invoked. — Edmund White

Marriage equality is not a choice. It is a legal right. — Cory Booker

The truth is, the notion that gay marriage is harmful to marriage, is sort of mind-boggling, because these are people trying to get married. But it seems to me, if you want to defend marriage against something, defend it against divorce. — Cokie Roberts

The real reason people oppose marriage equality is religious in nature. Marriage equality is therefore not only a civil rights issue, but also a separation-of-church-and-state issue. — David Silverman

I'm a UFC fighter, a macho-type sport. I am a heterosexual guy in a tough macho sport, which is exactly the reason I feel a duty to say I support gay marriage and gay rights. I have nothing to gain personally from supporting this issue, and that's the point. Society as a whole is better when there is equality, and I want to live in a country where everyone has the same rights because we all benefit from that — Rashad Evans

Many heterosexual marriages are childless; many with children break up: they are no guarantee that children will be raised in a house with two parents of two genders. The courts have scoffed at the reproduction and child-raising argument against marriage equality. And the conservatives have not mounted what seems to be their real objection; that they wish to preserve traditional marriage and more than that, traditional gender roles. — Rebecca Solnit

After much deliberation, and after reviewing the legal, public policy and civil-rights questions presented, I support marriage equality for same-sex couples and believe that DOMA should be repealed. — Bob Casey Jr.

Yes, gay marriage is about symbolically blessing a relationship, but the larger issue is about transmitting a fundamental message about equality. Gay people should have equality in law everywhere. — Daniel Radcliffe

It PASSED! Marriage equality in NY!! Yes!! Progress!! Thank you everyone who worked so hard on this!! A historic night! — Neil Patrick Harris

[Banning marriage equality is] discrimination, plain and simple. It's really not about votes. It's about people. I think it's the right thing to do as a human being. — Jay-Z

I have to tell you that equality has nothing to do with marriage. The basis of a good marriage, a reasonably happy marriage-don't delude yourself, there is no such thing as an entirely happy marriage-is, precisely, inequality. It's essential if two people are to feel mutual admiration. ................................
if you reflected a little more deeply you'd realize that you can only admire that which you do not possess. You do not admire in another a quality you have yourself, you admire what you don't have and which you see shining in another in all its splendor. — Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

Old white guys can be a funny bunch, can't they? The same anti-same-sex marriage, anti-affirmative action cadre can flower into the biggest supporters of 'equality' the minute they get a whiff of minority empowerment. — John Ridley

The last time I was this confused I was watching a Fassbinder film. — Ken O'Neill

There are moments where history is made ... This is one of those moments. — David M. Louie

from that standpoint I have to tell you that equality has nothing to do with marriage. — Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

[A]s people are beginning to see that the sexes form in a certain sense a continuous group, so they are beginning to see that Love and Friendship which have been so often set apart from each other as things distinct are in reality closely related and shade imperceptibly into each other. Women are beginning to demand that Marriage shall mean Friendship as well as Passion; that a comrade-like Equality shall be included in the word Love; and it is recognised that from the one extreme of a 'Platonic' friendship (generally between persons of the same sex) up to the other extreme of passionate love (generally between persons of opposite sex) no hard and fast line can at any point be drawn effectively separating the different kinds of attachment. We know, in fact, of Friendships so romantic in sentiment that they verge into love; we know of Loves so intellectual and spiritual that they hardly dwell in the sphere of Passion. — Edward Carpenter

Marriage and prostitution were two sides of one shield, the predatory man's exploitation of the sex-pleasure. The difference between them was a difference of class. If a woman had money she might dictate her own terms: equality, a life contract, and the legitimacy - that is, the property-rights - of her children. If she had no money, she was a proletarian, and sold herself for an existence. And — Upton Sinclair

Me being in love with a girl and wanting her to be with me, doing what I need to do to make her stay with me; it affects no one, yet it's terrifying to people and they think you're a monster. — Sara Quin

As an actor, you just want to work, and then you just want to be on a show or have a job that you love, and you hope that job will last - those things have happened. To have that platform to then talk about something that is very personal to me like marriage equality, it feels like a gift. I try and really respect that voice and not abuse it. — Jesse Tyler Ferguson