Jeffrey Montgomery quotes
"Gay panic” is insidious. It appeals to juries, who are allegedly made up of random members of the community. What defense lawyers know is that most people are repulsed by the idea of gay -especially gay male- sex. Those lawyers know that a claim of defense against an alleged gay sexual advance will win points with the jury of peers.
Jeffrey Montgomery
But the cards are stacked against us. Scurrilous and abusive rhetoric is spewed by politicians and so-called religious leaders, who cloak themselves by turning the Constitution on its head and claim protection and permission to demonize and denigrate us. Hiding behind the perversion of the concepts of religious freedom and political speech, those people have carved out a special right to impose their bigotry and hatred for us.
Jeffrey Montgomery
We want to be able to freely associate, without fear that our privacy, including the privacy of our intimate consensual relations, will be compromised by intrusive and abusive selective enforcement of laws or moral codes.
We want to be able to live with the person we choose in legally sanctioned arrangements or marriage, to be able to build and maintain families and raise children, with the full protections and benefits that attain to those relationships.
We want GLBT youth to have access to safe and inclusive education experiences, in both public and private educational institutions, no longer dispirited by judgmental, prejudicial systems that contribute to low self-esteem and leave them at risk. These are the basic rights and expectations yet to be achieved for GLBT people in this land of the free.
Jeffrey Montgomery
As new generations of activists come forward with new ideas and sensibilities; as the political landscape evolves and changes; as new technologies are born and developed; and as the mercurial focus of issues present new concerns and dangers... Our strength, creativity, harnessed rage and effective activism will remain constant and be the root source of our salvation in the future.
Jeffrey Montgomery
What kind of a society is this where a person can't express attraction without fearing that they're going to be murdered for it? If the person who came out with the secret was a Jewish woman or a black woman or an Asian woman, and he went over to her house the next day and killed her because he was so repulsed and she had embarrassed him that way on national television, nobody would be writing stories on the TV show's responsibility. Everyone would be writing stories about this racist, this anti-Semite.
Jeffrey Montgomery
We think this issue needs to matter to anyone who believes in true equal opportunity and justice. If we learned anything from our experience with the Proposal 2 battle, it's that these attempts to allow discrimination in Michigan must be stopped and a united effort by many communities is the only hope to stop them.
Jeffrey Montgomery
And let's not make any mistake, or gloss over that fact: Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are at risk every day of their lives. Not only are we the group most at risk of violence, we are most at risk of job discrimination, losing our families; homophobia retains its title as the last socially acceptable form of bigotry.
Jeffrey Montgomery