Quotes & Sayings About Prohibition

He had heard it sure enough, wailing underground in clubs and speakeasies, all through Prohibition, hot, polyphonic, toe-tapping, full of syncopated rhythms and bent, naughty notes - perfect for small and secret spaces. — Nicole Mones

Our nearly century-long experiment in banning marijuana has failed as abysmally as Prohibition did ... In contrast, legalizing and taxing marijuana would bring in substantial sums that could be used to pay for schools, libraries or early childhood education. — Nicholas D. Kristof

[Confiscating a book and punishing its author] is a sign that one does not have a good case, or at least doesn't trust it enough to defend it with reasons and refute the objections. Some people even go so far as to consider prohibited or confiscated books to be the best ones of all, for the prohibition indicates that their authors wrote what they really thought rather than what they were supposed to think ... — Laszlo Radvanyi

Neither, it turned out, was politics. His views on government were strong, if a trifle simplistic. The cause of the Depression, he felt, was Al Capone. "The trouble with the nation's economy," he declared, was simply Prohibition, which "makes it possible for large-scale dealers in illicit liquor to amass tremendous amounts of currency"; the "present economic crisis," he explained, was due to the "withdrawal of billions of dollars from the channels of legitimate trade" by these bootleggers. — Robert A. Caro

Obviously, the state's responsibility should be to legislate rules for a well-ordered society. It has no right or duty to creep into the bedrooms of the nation. — Pierre Trudeau

So, what were you doing that was such a secret?"
"Making moonshine."
I stared. "You're kidding me."
"Nope."
"Moonshine? As in rednecks and brown jugs and prohibition?"
Ida Belle drew herself up straight.
"It hasn't been illegal in quite some time. We're hardly rednecks, and we put all of our moonshine into pretty pink cough syrup bottles. — Jana Deleon

Just as the process of repealing national alcohol prohibition began with individual states repealing their own prohibition laws, so individual states must now take the initiative with respect to repealing marijuana prohibition laws. — George Soros

Among Evangelical Christians, all of whom await the Second Coming of Jesus, there are historically two camps: postmillennialists and premillennialists. For most of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most were of the "post" variety, meaning that they expected the Messiah's return after the thousand-year reign of peace. In order to hasten His arrival, they set out to create that harmonious world here and now, fighting for the abolition of slavery, prohibition of alcohol, public education, and women's literacy.
The chaos of the Civil War and industrialization caused many evangelicals to rethink their optimism. They determined that Jesus would actually arrive before the final judgment. Therefore any efforts toward a just society here on earth were futile; what mattered was perfecting one's faith. As historian Randall Balmer writes, these believers "retreated into a theology of despair, one that essentially ceded the temporal world to Satan and his minions. — Mark Sundeen

Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could. — William F. Buckley Jr.

What is unconscious cannot be abolished by proclamation or prohibition. One can, however, develop sensitivity toward recognizing it and begin to experience it consciously, and thus eventually gain control over it. A mother cannot truly respect her child as long as she does not realize what deep shame she causes him with an ironic remark, intended only to cover her own uncertainty. Indeed, she cannot be aware of how deeply humiliated, despised, and devalued her child feels, if she herself has never consciously suffered these feelings, and if she tries to fend them off with irony. — Alice Miller

To be intensely educated about the horror of sin and then to be conquered by it. I tell myself that it must be prohibition that kindles fantasy — Umberto Eco

Funny to watch these Senators switching back and forth on Prohibition. Politics is a great character builder. You have to take a referendum to see what your convictions are for that day. — Will Rogers

Evidence ... proves that prohibition only drives drunkenness behind closed doors and into dark places, and it does not cure it or even diminish it. — Mark Twain

After the war, Prohibition was passed, and with liquor no longer legally available the nation plunged headlong into the Great Depression. — Dave Barry

Prohibition only drives drunkenness behind doors and into dark places, and does not cure it or even diminish it. — Mark Twain

Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water. — W.C. Fields

For anybody who suspects that we need to reform the drug laws, there is an easier argument to make, and a harder argument to make. The easier argument is to say that we all agree drugs are bad - it's just that drug prohibition is even worse. — Johann Hari

God is a too palpably clumsy answer; an answer which shows a lack of delicacy towards us thinkers-fundamentally, even a crude prohibition to us: you shall not think! — Friedrich Nietzsche

The experience left me with a very strong sense of just how destructive this simple, seemingly mundane tool can be. A knife never jams. A knife never runs out of ammunition; you rarely see a gunshot murder victim who has been shot more than a few times, but any homicide investigator can tell you how common it is for the victim of a knife murder to bear twenty, thirty, or more stab and/or slash wounds. "A knife comes with a built-in silencer." Knives are cheap, and can be bought anywhere; there used to be a cutlery store at LaGuardia Airport, not far outside the security gates. There is no prohibition at law against a knife being sold to a convicted felon. Knives can be small and flat and amazingly easy to conceal. Anywhere — Massad Ayoob

Prohibition was better than no liquor at all. — Kurt Vonnegut

Government prohibitions do always more mischief than had been calculated; and it is not without much hesitation that a statesman should hazard to regulate the concerns of individuals, as if he could do it better than themselves. — Albert Gallatin

The first precept in Buddhism is "Do not kill." This precept is not merely a legalistic prohibition, but a realization of our affinity with all who share the gift of life. A compassionate heart provides a firm ground for this precept. — Dhammananda Bhikkhuni

'Boardwalk' begins literally on the first day of Prohibition, which I think was a wonderful way to start - to have the story kind of come out of this massive historical phenomenon. And the more I researched the '20s, the more I discovered just how interesting it was. — Michael Pitt

Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.[To Hindu priests complaining to him about the prohibition of Sati religious funeral practice of burning widows alive on her husband's funeral pyre.] — Charles James Napier

Lack of personal morality plus "politically correct" prohibition against judging others' behavior and naming immorality sets up a social environment receptive and vulnerable to a tyrannical government. A tyrannical government transforms every aspect of the cultural day-to-day lives of everyone under its control across all areas from the educational and penal systems to fine art and entertainment dictates right on down to housing regulations and food availabilities. — Alexandra York

Understand now, I'm purely a fiction writer and do not profess to be an earnest student of political science, but I believe strongly that such a law as one prohibiting liquor is foolish, and all the writers, keenly interested in human welfare whom I know, laugh at the prohibition law. — F Scott Fitzgerald

They talk about prohibition in America. What can one do in a country such as that?
'What does one do in America when one is sad - without alcohol?' asks Zwonimir. — Joseph Roth

The availability of domesticated animal species played an important role in the prohibition of cannibalism and the development of religions of love and mercy in the states and empires of the Old World. Christianity, it may yet turn out, was more the gift of the lamb in the manger than the child who was born in it. — Marvin Harris

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. — Albert Einstein

It is easy for a rabbi to establish prohibitions, but a rabbi's real strength is to teach Torah and rule on lawwith an emphasis on what is permitted. — Ovadia Yosef

The prohibition amendment to the Constitution requires the Congress. and the President to provide adequate laws to prevent its violation. It is my duty to enforce such laws.To prevent smuggling, the Coast Card should be greatly strengthened, and a supply of swift power boats should be provided. The major sources of production should be rigidly regulated, and every effort should be made to suppress interstate traffic ... It is the duty of a citizen not only to observe the law but to let it be known that he is opposed to its violation. — Calvin Coolidge

In New York, with Prohibition in full swing, he thought he had died and gone o hell for his sins. Then he discovered speakeasies and he rejoiced. — Frank McCourt

Where will you find any code of laws among civilized men in which the commands and prohibitions are not founded on Christian principles? I need not specify the prohibition of murder, robbery, theft, trespass. — Noah Webster

Some devout Christians are among the most fervent advocates of the death penalty, contradicting Jesus Christ and justifying their belief on an erroneous interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures. "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," their most likely response, overlooks the fact that this was promulgated by Moses as a limitation- a prohibition against taking both eyes or all of an offender's teeth in retribution. — Jimmy Carter

There are two principal approaches to secularism, focusing respectively on (1) neutrality between different religions, and (2) prohibition of religious associations in state activities. — Amartya Sen

On this matter I'm inclined to agree with the French, who gaze upon any personal dietary prohibition as bad manners. — Charles Dickens

Once we begin to appreciate that the apparent destructiveness of the toddler in taking apart a flower or knocking down sand castles is in fact a constructive effort to understand unity, we are able to revise our view of the situation, moving from reprimand and prohibition to the intelligent channeling of his efforts and the fostering of discovery. — Polly Berrien Berends

It's only since it's been made impossible that it's been made so damn easy. It's got like prohibition, with bums and crooks making fortunes out of hooch, everyone who might have had a palate losing it, nobody caring how you hold your liquor, you've been smart enough if you get it at all. You can't make good wine in a bathtub in the cellar, you need sun and rain and fresh air, you need pride in a job you can tell the world about. Only you can live without drink if you have to, but you can't live without love. — Mary Renault

The major basis for my opposition to marijuana prohibition has not been how badly it's worked, the fact that it's produced much more harm than good - it has been primarily a moral reason: I don't think the state has any more right to tell me what to put into my mouth than it has to tell me what can come out of my mouth. — Milton Friedman

There are two options for any society: total prohibition as in a totalitarian state, or total license. Both avoid the ardours of decision. Both have the attraction of certainty. The difficult option is to decide where the line should be drawn and this, surely, is the responsiblity of any civilized and democratic country. — P.D. James

In this regard, I reiterate that the prohibition against torture cannot be contravened under any circumstances. — Pope Benedict XVI

[As in the case of] alcohol prohibition, illegality has driven organized crime, sent countless people to jail, and killed many thousands. Repression does not work. — Sam Branson

Prohibition is to abstain from intoxicating liquor, as it makes us morbid and sometimes drunk. But we get drunk every day, nevertheless, not so much by the strength of what we sip from the cup, but that which we eat, the water we drink, and the air we inhale, which at fermentation conspire at eventide to make us so drunk and tired that we lose control of ourselves and fall asleep. Everybody is a drunkard, and if we were to enforce real prohibition we should all be dead. — Marcus Garvey

Reporters now are better educated than the crowd I knew when I broke in. We still had guys shaped by Prohibition and the Depression, so the news business still had badly paid people who loved it for the life, because every day was different. — Pete Hamill

As we reread Genesis 2...we immediately understand WHAT is 'crafty' about the serpent's question in Genesis 3. God did NOT in fact say in Genesis 2, 'You MUST NOT EAT from any tree in the garden' (3:1). What God did say was almost exactly the opposite: 'You ARE FREE TO EAT from any tree in the garden' (except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, 2:16). The vocabulary of God in Genesis 2 indicates freedom and blessing. The vocabulary of the serpent in Genesis 3 indicates prohibition and restriction. The serpent's ploy is to suggest to the woman that God is really not so good after all. He shifts attention away from all that God in his generosity has provided for his creatures in creation and onto the one thing that God has for the moment explicitly withheld. — Iain W. Provan

Prohibition is an awful flop. We like it. It can't stop what it's meant to stop. We like it. It's left a trail of graft and slime It don't prohibit worth a dime It's filled our land with vice and crime, Nevertheless, we're for it. — Franklin P. Adams

Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal. — Janet Reno

I think that, that it would be hard for New Hampshire to vote for somebody who was a fundamentalist minister, affable as he is. He does seem to actually want to write, for example, a prohibition against abortion into the Constitution , which Ronald Reagan, for all his talking about it, never tried to do one time. — Mike Huckabee

It was left to the Progressive movement in America (as to the Fabians in Britain) to promote eugenics, Prohibition, dietary fads, the compulsory sterilisation of those they deemed 'unfit', and preferential treatment in immigration law of 'Nordic' (and preferably Protestant) immigrants. — Markham Shaw Pyle

Against self-slaughter There is a prohibition so divine That cravens my weak hand. — William Shakespeare

ShanTu said that we must set the soul free from the body and its lusts. Having thus got rid of the foolishness of the flesh, we shall be pure. While an admirable goal, the sisterhood has not found this practical. For whatever purpose, body and soul are joined. Denying one's bodily lusts is about as effective as prohibition, which is to say not effective at all. — Susan Cartwright

If lawyers had followed the norm of no execution without trial, if doctors had accepted the rule of no surgery without consent, if businessmen had endorsed the prohibition of slavery, if bureaucrats had refused to handle paperwork involving murder, then the Nazi regime would have been much harder pressed to carry out the atrocities by which we remember it. Professions — Timothy Snyder

Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished. — H.L. Mencken

We need a morality based upon love of life, upon pleasure in growth and positive achievement, not upon repression and prohibition. — Bertrand Russell

Christian socialism"). This is a difficult concept for modern liberals to grasp because they are used to thinking of the progressives as the people who cleaned up the food supply, pushed through the eight hour workday, and ended child labor. But liberals often forget that the progressives were imperialists, at home and abroad. They were the authors of Prohibition, the Palmer Raids, eugenics, loyalty oaths, and, in its modern incarnation, what many call "state capitalism. — Jonah Goldberg

A 'well regulated militia' was thus one that was well-trained and equipped, not one that was 'well-regulated' in the modern sense of being subjected to numerous government prohibitions and restrictions. — Glenn Reynolds

Sometimes rebuffing him was a difficult, but this evening Margo whispered something about the prohibition on sex during the Yom Kippur holiday--as if they were a family of rabbis!--and he gave in and turned on his side. Rejected and repelled, he would fall into his nighttime sleep; in just a few moments she would hear that sound she hated, the heavy breathing that would rise to his nostrils and turn into a saw-like din, and Margo would wonder whether to shake him or let him be. If she awaken him, there was a chance he might start probing all over again; if she let him snore, he would disrupt her thinking, and she would not be able to give herself over to the brilliant idea she had come up with while staring in the mirror. — Anat Talshir

Our current draconian laws prohibiting the use of marijuana by responsible adults are doubly flawed. Not only does such prohibition violate fundamental freedoms but also ... it undermines personal health and public safety. Regardless of your views on the civil liberties issues ... another compelling justification for marijuana law reform: that it will promote health and safety for all of us, including our nation's children. — Nadine Strossen

The Prohibition era is so vividly depicted in 'Lawless.' John Hillcoat does a remarkable job of rooting his film in such a tangible reality. — Dane DeHaan

There is no logical basis for the prohibition of marijuana. $7.7 billion is a lot of money, but that is one of the lesser evils. Our failure to successfully enforce these laws is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Colombia. I haven't even included the harm to young people. It's absolutely disgraceful to think of picking up a 22-year-old for smoking pot. More disgraceful is the denial of marijuana for medical purposes. — Milton Friedman

From the explicit prohibition against the destruction of fruit trees, our sages deduced that it is all the more forbidden to destroy the fruits themselves. — Yehuda Levi

Through its prohibition on birth control, the Church has suggested that the only right way to have children is through biological reproduction: a kind of forced labor culminating in the production of another soul for God. What kind of a God stands like Lee Iacocca at the end of an assembly line, driving his workers with a greedy 'More! More!' while the automobiles pile up in showrooms and on freeways and in used-car lots and finally junkyards, his only satisfaction the gross production figures at the end of every quarter? — Nancy Mairs

There has never been any art or literature without drink and there never will be....Unless something is done about the matter [prohibition] this country is going to the dogs. There has been no development in our art or literature for 30 or 40 years. — Joseph Pennell

It's finding out where we came from that helps guide us to where we are going. — Mona Rodriguez

There'd never been a more advantageous time to be a criminal in America than during the 13 years of Prohibition. At a stroke, the American government closed down the fifth largest industry in the United States - alcohol production - and just handed it to criminals - a pretty remarkable thing to do. — Bill Bryson

Discovery can give no right of ownership, for whatever is discovered must have been already here to be discovered. If a man makes a wheelbarrow, or a book, or a picture, he has a moral right to that particular wheelbarrow, or book, or picture, but no right to ask that others be prevented from making similar things. Such a prohibition, though given for the purpose of stimulating discovery and invention, really in the long run operates as a check upon them. — Henry George

You cannot legislate language. Prohibition never worked, right? Not for booze and not for sex and not for words. — Mary Norris

Popularizing - much less venturing beyond one's secure turf - was frowned upon for many years. I think I probably internalized the prohibition, even though I was - and knew I was - among the best speakers and writers of my age cohort. I don't mean I was the best historian - a quite different measure. — Tony Judt

All organisation is and must be grounded on the idea of exclusion and prohibition just as two objects cannot occupy the same space — Arthur Miller

During Prohibition, Atlantic City created the idea of the speakeasy, which turned into nightclubs and that extraordinary political complexity and corruption coming out of New Jersey at the time. The long hand that they had-and maybe still do-even had to do with presidential elections. — Martin Scorsese

The gun-control crusade today is like the Prohibition crusade 100 years ago. It is a shared zealotry that binds the self-righteous know-it-alls in a warm fellowship of those who see themselves as fighting on the side of the angels against the forces of evil. It is a lofty role that they are not about to give up for anything so mundane as facts - or even the lives of other people. — Thomas Sowell

How do we account for this paradox that the absence of Law universalizes prohibition ... The psychoanalytic name for this obscene injunction for this obscene call, ENJOY, is superego. The problem today is not how to get rid of your inhibitions and to be able to spontaneously enjoy. The problem is how to get rid of this injunction to enjoy. — Slavoj Zizek

I live in New York City, and one day many years ago I was with a poet, Gregory Corso, walking through Greenwich Village. He pointed to a doorway in an alley that he said led to a tunnel under Manhattan, a tunnel he'd use to run from the cops. I started learning about old Prohibition-era speakeasy tunnels under the city, for running whiskey. — Ann Nocenti

From the outset, MoMA followed the Bauhaus's strict prohibition against design that even hinted at the decorative, a prejudice that skewed the pioneering museum's view of Modernism for decades. — Martin Filler

The accession of not one but three illegal drug users in a row to the US presidency constitutes an existential challenge to the prohibitionist regime. The fact that some of the most successful people of our time, be it in business, finances, politics, entertainment or the arts, are current or former substance users is a fundamental refutation of its premises and a stinging rebuttal of its rationale. A criminal law that is broken at least once by 50% of the adult population and that is broken on a regular basis by 20% of the same adult population is a broken law, a fatally flawed law. How can a democratic government justify a law that is consistently broken by a substantial minority of the population? What we are witnessing here is a massive case of civil disobedience not seen since alcohol prohibition in the 1930 in the US. On what basis can a democratic system justify the stigmatization and discrimination of a strong minority of as much as 20% of its population? — Jeffrey Dhywood

A man with a camera was always suspected of being a spy. Moreover, the Jews did not want to be photographed, due to a misunderstanding of the prohibition against making graven images (photography had not been invented when the Torah was written!). I was forced to use a hidden camera ... — Roman Vishniac

Prohibition has made nothing but trouble — Al Capone

Much of Texas took its prohibition seriously. Not Dalhart. It took its whiskey seriously, in part because some of the finest corn liquor in America was coming out of the High Plains. — Timothy Egan

You look at any culture, and prohibition has invariably been an unmitigated failure. It is just idiotic to criminalise any substance, I think. — Rhys Ifans

The thin child knew enough fairy stories to know that a prohibition in a story is only there to be broken. The first humans were fated to eat the apple. The dice were loaded against them. The grandfather was pleased with himself. The thin child found no one in this story with whom to sympathise. Except maybe the snake, which had no asked to be made use of as a temper.
The snake wanted simply to coil about in the branches.
What was there in the beginning in the Asgard stories?
In the first age there was nothing. Nor sand, nor the sea, nor cold waves; there was no earth, no sky on high. The gulf galped and grass grew nowhere. — A.S. Byatt

Shameless, impudent, meddling females, who presumed to set at naught the Society's prohibition on women's magic, and duped the common people with their potions and cantrips! — Zen Cho

Prohibition ... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes ... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded. — Abraham Lincoln

Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet - who was only another male mammal - is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. — Christopher Hitchens

Alcoholism, the opium habit and tobaccoism are a trio of poison habits which have been weighty handicaps to human progress during the last three centuries. In the United States, the subtle spell of opium has been broken by restrictive legislation; the grip of the rum demon has been loosened by the Prohibition Amendment to the Constitution, but the tobacco habit still maintains its strangle-hold and more than one hundred million victims of tobaccoism daily burn incense to the smoke god. — John Harvey Kellogg

Prohibition didn't work in the Garden of Eden. Adam ate the apple. — Vicente Fox

Anarchists are extreme libertarian socialists , "libertarian" meaning the demand for freedom from prohibition, and "socialist" meaning the demand for social equality ... Complete freedom implies equality, since if there are rich and poor, the poor cannot be permitted to take liberties with riches. Complete equality implies freedom, since those who suffer restrictions cannot be the equals of those who impose them. — Donald Rooum

Although my parents were kind and loving, I had none of the joys, or the companionship, which small children usually have. From my earliest years my recollection is of my father saying: 'Do no' or 'Thou shall not'. Any form of sport or light entertainment was frowned upon and regarded as not edifying. There was only condemnation and prohibition ... — John George Haigh

Prohibition is the trigger of crime. — Ian Fleming

I hear it was the fact that the Brennans had a hellfireanddamnation preacher runnin' their family back in Prohibition days and you Gallaghers were runnin' moonshine to get by and got caught. Your family blamed the Brennans for rattin' you out, and that started a feud," Rosalie said. — Carolyn Brown

One role of prohibition is in making the drug market more lucrative. — Milton Friedman

This new declaration which emphasizes the necessity of global disarmament is based on the purposes and principles of the United Nations, in particular the prohibition of the threat and use of force, and on the obligation to negotiate disputes in conformity with the UN Charter. It is a strong and positive example for the entire world. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

Alex said, "Okay, I need to know something. Why the Camel Club?"
Stone answered, "Because camels have great stamina. They never give up."
"That's what Oliver says, but the real reason is this," Reuben countered. "In the 1920s there was another Camel Club. And at each meeting of that club they would all raise their glasses and take a vow to oppose Prohibition to the last drop of whiskey. Now, that's my kind of club. — David Baldacci

I was playing birthday parties. House-rent parties where they used to sell whisky during prohibition. — Thelonious Monk

Slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians (and of Jews). Within the context of medieval Europe, that prohibition was effectively a rule of universal abolition. — Rodney Stark

Complete prohibition of all chemical mind changers can be decreed, but cannot be enforced, and tends to create more evils than it cures. — Aldous Huxley

It is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness, of speech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to appear respectable. It is contentment ... the contentment of the quiet dead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking. It is negation canonized as the one positive virtue. It is the prohibition of happiness. It is slavery self-sought and self-defended. It is dullness made God. A savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking chairs prickly with inane decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatest race in the world. — Sinclair Lewis

Even if sexual orientation were a choice, aren't we a country where we're supposed to be free to pursue our happiness, whether we're hetero-, homo-, bi-, trans-, or even a-sexual? To use [an analogy that homosexuality is a vice, like drinking], being antigay is like Prohibition, when a small group of busybodies thought no one should be allowed to drink. — Alex Sanchez

I was getting sick and tired of being lectured by dear friends with their little bottles of water and their regular visits to the gym. All of a sudden, we've got this voluntary prohibition that has to do with health and fitness. I'm not really in favor of health and fitness. — Barbara Holland

We are losing the war against cancer. The prohibition of new carcinogenic products, reduction of toxins in use, and right-to-know laws - these are among the legislative proposals which could reverse the cancer epidemic. — Samuel Epstein

The real transgression occurs when religion wants government to tell citizens how to live uniquely personal parts of their lives. The failure of Prohibition proves the futility of such an attempt when a majority or even a substantial minority happens to disagree. Some questions may be inherently individual ones, or people may be sharply divided about whether they are. In such cases, like Prohibition and abortion, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the conscience of the individual, not the coercive power of the state. — Edward Kennedy