“American culture has basically accepted the concept of human rights. [...]

“[...]this concept has included implicit exclusions. [...]

“The exclusion has always been justified by putative differences in kind. The question in such border disputes is always when is a difference a distinction.”

- Joel

“Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’
Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’
Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’
But conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’”

“And there comes a point when one must take a position that is
neither safe,
nor polite,
nor popular,
but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that
it is right.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr.