"In a nation that has entertained and appalled itself for years with hot talk on the radio and the campaign trail, the inflamed [conservative] rhetoric of the '90s is suddenly an unindicted co-conspirator in the [Oklahoma City] blast."
—
Time Magazine Senior Writer Richard Lacayo, May 8, 1995 issue.
Lader, Larry (co-founder, Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (ARAL), later the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL), the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARRAL) and NARAL Pro-Choice America)
"What happens to women in such circumstances — an estimated 1,000,000 a year denied by law the right to hospital abortion — has never been analyzed before because there has been no access to a sizable study group. Generally rich and affluent women, a tiny privileged class, manage to arrange for hospital, or "therapeutic," abortions every year, but the great majority must seek "underworld" abortions from hacks, medical butchers or midwives with little or no gynecological training, or resort to the even more drastic recourse of self-abortion by deadly chemicals and homemade instruments. Almost half of all childbearing deaths in New York City stem from "underworld" abortion."
—
Lawrence Lader, co-founder, National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARRAL). "First Exclusive Survey of Non-Hospital Abortions." Look Magazine, January 21, 1969, pages 63, 64 and 65.
"The publication of Friedan's Feminine Mystique in 1963, and the founding of the National Organization for Women in 1966 marked the dividing line between the old feminism of rights and the new feminism of liberation — Friedan and Neofeminism erupted on a wave of technology. For it was the technology of contraception, the birth control Pill, that make possible the radicalization of women. Only when technology — and abortion is a crucial step in this process — allowed women to free themselves from the prison of incessant childbearing could they grapple with the possibility of achieving themselves on every plane. By bringing NOW, and eventually Women's Lib into the abortion campaign, Friedan ensured that the struggle for feminine revolution was solidly rooted in the one base that could turn theory into reality — a woman's control over her own body and procreation. It was the surge and fever of Neofeminism that paved the way for the abortion movement. Each was essential to the other, and neither could have advanced without the other.
"No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her own body. Ms. Sanger taught me this ... Until then I had never grasped the implications of this principle. Whatever the original feminists demanded for women, or Betty Friedan and the Neofeminists today, whether equality before the law, in education, business, and professions ... all of these things were meaningless unless a woman controlled her own procreation. No woman could achieve these other freedoms without the basic freedom of birth control ... I was convinced that abortion must be completely legalized as a backup, emergency measure to contraception ... the biggest step was to demand legalization as an inalienable right of women, protected by the Constitution's Bill of Rights" [emphasis added].
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Larry Lader, co-founder, National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARRAL). Abortion II, Making the Revolution [Boston: Beacon Press], 1973, pages 18 to 20 and 36 to 40.
"Historically, every revolution has to have its villain. ... Now, in our case, it makes little sense to lead a campaign only against unjust laws, even though that's what we really are doing. We have to narrow the focus, identify those unjust laws with a person or a group of people. ... There's always been one group of people in this country associated with reactionary politics, behind-the-scenes manipulations, socially backward ideas. You know who I mean, Bernie. ... the Catholic hierarchy. That's a small enough group to come down on, and anonymous enough so that no names ever have to be mentioned ... "
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National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) co-founder Larry Lader, speaking to Bernard M. Nathanson, M.D., as described in Nathanson's book The Abortion Papers: Inside the Abortion Mentality [Madison, Wisconsin: Idea Books], 1985.
"Unless Protestantism wants to continue its unstated but inherent subservience to Catholic doctrine, it is high time the Protestant leadership announces: A piece of tissue cannot be sanctified as human life."
"As long as the Catholic Church, or any faith, continues to block legislation allowing individual conscience and free choice in abortion, the core of our democratic system is crippled. The right to abortion is the foundation of Society's long struggle to guarantee that every child comes into this world wanted, loved, and cared for. The right to abortion, along with all birth-control measures, must establish the Century of the Wanted Child."
—
Lawrence Lader. Abortion [New York City: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.], 1966, page 165.
"The right to abortion, an inalienable right of all women, is an integral part of population control."
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Lawrence Lader, co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), quoted in Samuel L. Blumenfeld. The Retreat From Motherhood [New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House], 1975, page 37.
"The menial housewife programmed into a cheap source of breeding and domestic labor should be relegated to the ashheap of Puritan morality."
"Above all, the abortion revolution should intensify the trend towards population control. In 1972, about 600 thousand legal abortions were performed nationwide — a figure that accounted in large measure for the decline in births below the replacement level of 2.110."
"The impact of the abortion revolution may be too vast to assess immediately. It should usher in an era when every child will be wanted, loved, and properly cared for; when the incidence of infanticides and battered children should be sharply reduced."
—
Larry Lader, co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). "The Abortion Revolution." The Humanist, May/June 1973, page 4.
"The necessity of feeding a quarter of the world's population has spurred a unique population-control program that has had remarkable results."
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Lawrence Lader, co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL), now the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARRAL). "The China Solution." Science Digest, April 1983, page 78.
Ladman, Kathy ("Comedy Showcase" 'comedienne')
"My best friend is Lutheran and she told me when Jesus was born, the Three Wise Men visited him and they brought as gifts: Gold, frankincense and myrrh. Myrrh? To a baby shower? I guess Mary was very polite about it — myrrh — how lovely. You can never have enough — myrrh. Couldn't they have brought something we need — like a cradle? Jesus Christ! Hey, that's what I'll name him — it's much better than Jeff! Then Joseph and Mary would throw parties. Who's coming? The Wise Men! They always bring bad gifts. I hope they follow the wrong star and get lost. Bad mood — bad mood! Of course I'm in a bad mood. I haven't had sex — EVER!"
—
"Comedy Showcase" 'comedienne' Cathy Ladman, June 1, 1997. Described in Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 1997 Report on Anti-Catholicism, available on-line at the Catholic League's Web site here.
Lambert, Douglas (homosexual actor)
"I've had over 1,000 sexual partners. I forget where my thought's gone ... I've had gonorrhea probably 40 times, and I've had syphilis about four or five times."
—
Homosexual actor Douglas Lambert, who died of AIDS in December 1986, quoted in the Toronto Daily Sun of March 1, 1987. Also quoted in a letter to Fidelity Magazine by James H. Cotter of Barrie, Ontario, April 1987, page 9.
Lamm, Richard (former Governor of Colorado)
"We are making birth control compulsory because we have compulsory death control, and we have found you can't have one without the other. Having compulsory death control, we must have compulsory birth control, limiting every family to two children."
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Former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm. Quoted in "'Voluntary' Sterilization?" ALL About Issues, March 1983, page 30.
"A terrific article that I've read, one of the philosophers of our time, I think, is a guy named Leon Kass — has anybody seen his stuff, he's just terrific! In The American Scholar last year he wrote an article called "The Case for Mortality," where, essentially he said we have a duty to die. It's like if leaves fall off a tree forming the humus for the other plants to grow out. We've got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life."
—
Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm, March 27, 1984.
Lamotte, Greg (CNN)
"When rioting, looting, and arson erupted last spring, it wasn't just anger over the Rodney King verdict, it was an explosion of rage over years of social and economic neglect, poor schools, violent streets, joblessness, poverty, and no hope. Has anything changed? Quite honestly, very little has."
"Fidel [Castro] touched this young machine adjuster, and the man enjoyed a mild ecstasy. I know the feeling."
—
Institute for Policy Studies Senior Fellow Saul Landau, in his pro-Castro documentary "The Uncompromising Revolution," aired with "Nobody Listened" on PBS August 8, 1990.
Landau, Susan (Feminist Women's Health Center (FWHC))
"The technology is here — you can't take that away. They may make abortion illegal, but they can't control it."
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Susan Landau of the Redding Feminist Women's Health Center, quoted in Lisa M. Krieger. "Clinics Teaching Women to Do Home Abortions." San Francisco Examiner, July 21, 1989.
Landers, Ann (syndicated advice columnist)
"[Pope John Paul II] looks like an angel. He has the face of an angel ... Of course, he's a Polack ... They're very anti-woman."
—
Ann Landers, New Yorker Magazine of November 29, 1995, and "The People Column." The Oregonian [Portland, Oregon], December 1, 1995, page A2.
"According to some studies, an estimated 10 percent of individuals worldwide are homosexual."
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Ann Landers' reply to "Hampton, VA," May 25, 1997.
"Never in my 30 years of writing this column have I run into such half-baked distortions, complete lies and twisted facts contrived to make a story sound believable."
—
Syndicated advice columnist Ann Landers, referring to fetal experimentation in her July 16, 1985 column, quoted in Richard Glasow. "Ann Landers Grossly Distorts Facts About Experimentation on Babies Born Through Abortion." National Right to Life News, August 22, 1985, page 10.
Landma, Lynn C.
"More teenagers are using contraceptives and using them more consistently than ever before, yet the number and rate of adolescent pregnancies continue to rise."
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Lynn C. Landma. "Anniversaries." The Alan Guttmacher Institute's Family Planning Perspectives. September/October 1980, page 2.
Landsberg, Michelle
"The conservative cowboys of the media are throwing their hats in the air and tap-dancing on the tables to celebrate George Bush's overwhelming dominance of American (and world) power ... this ignorant man, now hailed as 'shrewd' because he won the election on the backs of the World Trade Centre victims, is engaged in a war on women around the globe. Bush is gearing up to police the wombs of the world's women ... America, once a beacon of feminist achievement, will become a dread example of what can happen when religion and politics entwine to waltz us back to the Dark Ages."
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Michele Landsberg, wife of former UNICEF Executive Director for External Relations Stephen Lewis, in a November 16, 2002 column in the Toronto Star entitled "Bush Continues His Right-Wing War on Women."
"Seems these evangelicals feel all shook up unless the state enforces their form of belief. Their idea of social stability, however, is just what threatens us all. It creates the kind of parents who teach their children to hate and taunt their schoolmates who are children of lesbians or gay men. It gives licence to the kind of thugs who would beat a Matthew Shepard to death because he was gay. It breeds the toxic intolerance that drives gay youths to a 30 per cent higher suicide rate than other teens."
—
Extract from a June 2, 2001 Toronto Star column by radical pro-abortion feminist Michelle Landsberg regarding a proclamation by the Mayor of Regina of Heterosexual Family Pride Day. "Toronto Star Feminist Columnist M. Landsberg Found Unfair to Evangelicals: Ontario Press Council Upholds Complaint." LifeSite Daily News at http://www.lifesite.net, June 12, 2002 [NOTE: Landsberg said that the Mayor's motives were "to try to enshrine one Christian or 'missionary' brand of sexuality as the only official and legal style of union." Naturally, Landsberg thinks it is just fine if a mayor proclaims a "Homosexual Pride Day." The Ontario Press Council upheld a complaint by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) against the Toronto Star. The Council said that "The Ontario Press Council is on record as declaring it believes columnists deserve wide latitude in expressing their opinions, no matter how controversial or unpopular. But, despite the newspaper's contention that the column was using the word "evangelicals" to mean "zealots" and was not intended as criticism of "any formal religious body," the Council regards the term in the column's context as an unnecessarily hurtful reference to an identifiable group and upholds the complaint"].
Langley, Liz
"These are the little wafers that Catholics believe are the body of Christ. These, I thought, might come in handy if you were possessed and couldn't get to a priest right away. ... If you have the box of Jesus on your hands, you might be able to get out of this pickle on your own. ... Mortify your Catholic friends by setting them out with the hors d'oeuvres at a party."
—
Liz Langley. "Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Fun." The Orlando Weekly, August 10-16, 1995. Described in Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 1995 Report on Anti-Catholicism, available on-line at the Catholic League's Web site here [NOTE: Langley had purchased Communion Wafers at a religious store].
Langmyhr, George (Planned Parenthood/World Population (PP/WP))
"It goes without saying that Planned Parenthood affiliates have long been involved in programs of abortion information counseling and referral [before abortion was legal]. Before the recent change in abortion laws, these activities were necessarily unpublicized ..."
—
George Langmyhr, M.D., former Medical Director, Planned Parenthood/World Population. "The Role of Planned Parenthood/World Population in Abortion." Implementation of Legal Abortion: A National Problem. Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology series, medical department, Harper & Row, Volume 14, Number 4, December 1971.
Lapham, Lewis (Harper's Magazine)
"For the most part, the Nicaraguan Contras burned villages and murdered civilians. On behalf of their cause, Reagan sold out his oath of office and subverted the Constitution. ... "Oliver North presented himself as the immortal boy in the heroic green uniform of Peter Pan. Although wishing to be seen as a humble patriot, the colonel's testimony showed him to be a treacherous and lying agent of the national security state, willing to do anything asked of him by a President to whom he granted the powers of an Oriental despot."
—
Harper's Magazine Editor Lewis Lapham, narrating his PBS series "America's Century," November 28, 1989.
LaPierre, Laurier L. (Liberal Canadian Senator)
"I am tired of all these sily [sic] letters written by a bunch [sic] self-serving religious zealots. ... At the end of the day and in spite of your — and that of your cohorts — perverted understanding of the message of Christ: The Canadian Way will win: For we are a tolerant and just society dedicated to equality, justice for all, diversity, and inclusion for all our people. [The traditional interpretation is] a perversion of the message of the Gospel, especially of the all encompassing and loving Christ!"
—
E-mail message to a person opposing homosexual 'marriage' by Liberal Canadian Senator Laurier L. LaPierre, quoted in "Canadian Senator Insults Citizens for Urging Protection of Traditional Marriage." LifeSite Daily News, August 1, 2002.
"Honorable senators, first, I must admit to my own sexual orientation. I am a gay man, living in harmony — harmony conditioned by human nature — with a kind and gentle man and whose silver ring I wear with comfort on the ring finger of my right hand.
"The Church made a woman the property of her husband and subject to him, thus controlling her to the largest possible degree. The Church forced her to hide her femininity under yards of cloth and contrived with the men of her family and with her husband to keep her ignorant and chained to the stove — a state that has been the fate of women in every conceivable church and religion we believe in and which have all been established by men wearing skirts. ... The Taliban, who also wear skirts, were only following the dictates of tradition. ... To achieve the end of the subjugation of women it was necessary for the promulgators of marriage to launch a horrible campaign of discrimination against homosexuality — a campaign that coincided, oddly enough, with what became the compelling obsession of most religions: Anti-Semitism.
"In the long and cruel campaign against homosexuals of either sex, but particularly gay men, many have been discriminated against in the name of the gods and their lives ruined to maintain the hegemony of a fragile orthodoxy. They died in the dungeons of the princes of the churches and of the states or burned at the stake by order of the churches or stoned in the public square of Imams. They died as well in the concentration camps of the Nazis. They died abandoned; they were denied comfort; they were reviled in the pulpits during the first days of AIDS, a moment in our history that I know much about; and they still die in the dark streets and parks of our cities. Moreover, while they lived and live, they were and are discriminated against — an abuse of human rights too often blessed by the silence or the conspiracy of the churches."
Speaker pro tempore: "Will Senator LaPierre take a question?"
Senator LaPierre: "No, honorable senators. I am close to my emotions."
Speaker pro tempore: "Senator Cools may ask a question."
Senator LaPierre: "I said no."
—
Liberal Senator Laurier L. LaPierre, appointed to the Canadian Senate in 2001 by Prime Minister Jean Chretien, during a March 6, 2002 speech before the Senate in support of same-sex 'marriage' [Debates of the Senate (Hansard), 1st Session, 37th Parliament, Volume 139, Issue 93]. Quoted in "Canadian Senator Compares Christian Church to Taliban for Upholding Marriage: Links Taliban, Supposed Repression of Women by all Churches and Religions, and Anti-Semitism." LifeSite Daily News at http://www.lifesite.net, March 12, 2002.
LaRue, DeDe ('artist')
"People don't like their religion made fun of — so that's why I do it."
—
"Artist" DeDe LaRue, explaining her 'work' at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver, Colorado, to the Rocky Mountain News in July 1996. In her work entitled "Rin Tin Tin Jesus," a sculpted dog has a stigmata, a crown of thorns, and a dog tag which reads, "Rin Tin Tin Jesus — If found return to heaven." It was part of her Dogma series, which habitually mock and revile the Catholic Church. Described in Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 1996 Report on Anti-Catholicism, available on-line at the Catholic League's Web site here.
Laski, H. (eugenicist)
"Sterilize all the unfit, among whom I include all fundamentalists."
—
Francis Galton's protege H. Laski, in a letter to Supreme Court Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, referring to the Court's 1927 Buck v. Bell decision, quoted in Allen Chase. The Legacy of Malthus: The Social Costs of the New Scientific Racism [Chicago: University of Illinois Press], 1986, page 316.
Lauper, Cyndi (pop singer)
"God has nothing to do with nuns who tried to be good but the whole theory of that organization [Catholic Church] is about oppression, oppression of women. ... The only way that she [the Blessed Virgin Mary] conceived the Son of God was through this big miracle which means that the gift God gave women to give birth, the one gift ... for us is an evil basically . ... "I'm supposed to feel bad about being a woman; these dames [nuns] they gotta look ugly and this guy's [priest] wearing a flowing skirt ... He wants to wear a skirt, he's got the whole drag thing going, he's got a hat like a penis ..."
—
Pop singer Cyndi Lauper during her stint on Tom Snyder's "The Late, Late Show," Los Angeles, September 12, 1995. Described in Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 1995 Report on Anti-Catholicism, available on-line at the Catholic League's Web site here.
Lavender Network (homosexual newspaper)
"A sharply curtailed telephone sex industry could harm gay newspapers and magazines, about half of which derive substantial revenue from the industry."
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National Newsline. "Adult Phone Lines Under Attack." Editorial in The Lavender Network, April 1990, page 50.
Leary, Timothy (illegal drug guru)
"I would say to everybody, do not let the priests and popes and medics tell you what to do."
—
Illegal drug guru Timothy Leary, in support of assisted suicide and "designer dying." Quoted in Laura Mansnerus, New York Times News Service. "Dying Timothy Leary Will Go His Way." The Oregonian, December 3, 1995, page A19.
"Leather Fest 2000"
[We are celebrating] "20 years of pain and pleasure by holding workshops on rope bondage, mummification, fisting, flogging, and others."
—
Advertisement for "Leather Fest 2000," held at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York City. Described in Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 2000 Report on Anti-Catholicism, available on-line at the Catholic League's Web site here.
Lee, Mike (ABC)
"These refugees have been told little about the realities of life in the West, including the fact that some people sleep on the street. ... They will soon learn that jobs are hard to find, consumer goods expensive, relatives in Albania will be missed. Many refugees, according to experts, will suffer from depression, and in some cases, drug abuse."
—
ABC's Mike Lee on what's facing fleeing Albanians, July 14, 1990 "World News Tonight."
Lee, Spike (director)
"One can never forget that America was built upon the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of African peoples. To say otherwise is criminal."
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Director Spike Lee, in a letter to the Hollywood Reporter, quoted in John Prizer. "Revolutionary Idealism." National Catholic Register, August 6-12, 2000, page 12.
Leite, Gabriela (prostitute)
"This [the law] foments corruption, where the police are paid to look the other way and prevents the prostitute from having a formal working relationship with her employer. She is forced to work in miserable conditions and can't do anything about it. She can't make legal complaints about mistreatment, simply because her employer and the police have more power. It's a vicious circle that we want to break."
—
Prostitute Gabriela Leite of the National Network of Sex Professionals, speaking at the First National Prostitute Rally in Brazil, funded by the World Council of Churches (WCC). Quoted in Paul Jeffrey. "Brazilian Prostitutes Lobby for Respect." National Catholic Reporter, November 14, 1997, page 12.
Lenin, Vladimir
"Destroy a nation's morality, and it will fall in your lap like ripe fruit from a tree. ... What does it matter if three-quarters of the world perish, as long as the remaining one-quarter is Communist? ... We must practice co-existence with other nations, until we are strong enough to take over by world revolution ... We are not pacifists. Conflict is inevitable. Great political questions can only be solved by violence ... It is inconceivable that Communism and Democracy can exist side by side in the world. Inevitably, one must perish. ... Promises are like pie crust, made to be broken. ... We will find our greatest success to the extent that we inculcate Marxism as a kind of religion: Religious men and women are easy to convert and win, and so will easily accept our thinking if we wrap it up in a kind of religious terminology."
—
Vladimir Lenin, who died of syphilis. Quoted in Lenin: Selected Works. 3 Volumes, 2,225 pages. Distributed in English by Progress Publishers, 21, Zubovsky Boulevard, Moscow, and available in Marxist-Leninist bookstores and political science libraries at local colleges.
"The more representatives of the reactionary bourgeoisie and the reactionary clergy that we manage to shoot the better. Now is the time to teach the public such a lesson that for many decades they will not dare even to think of any sort of resistance."
—
Vladimir Lenin's August 22, 1922 letter to the Politburo. Quoted by the Keeston News Service, National Catholic Register, July 1, 1990, page 8.
Leno, Jay ("Tonight Show" host)
"Try playin' it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer."
"Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate."
—
Some of the lyrics from "The Vatican Rag," featuring four people dressed as bishops twirling Rosary beads, one of whom was dressed as the Pope, dancing with actor Dennis Franz, on the May 19, 2001 "Tonight Show" with Jay Leno. Described in Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 2000 Report on Anti-Catholicism, available on-line at the Catholic League's Web site here.
Leonard, John (CBS)
"In the plague years of the 1980s — that low decade of denial, indifference, hostility, opportunism, and idiocy — government fiddled, medicine diddled, and the media were silent or hysterical. A gerontocratic Ronald Reagan took this [AIDS] plague less seriously than Gerald Ford had taken swine flu. After all, he didn't need the ghettos and he didn't want the gays."
—
CBS "Sunday Morning" TV critic John Leonard, September 5, 1993.
"From the pronunciamentos out of Washington, you'd think the new Congress were a slash-and-burn Khmer Rouge, determined to rid Phnom Penh of every member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, every painter who ever got a dime out of the National Endowment for the Arts, every child who was ever difficult, and other inconvenient co-dependents who ought instead to be growing rice and eating fish paste in the boondocks."
—
CBS "Sunday Morning" TV critic John Leonard, January 8, 1995.
"Nancy pushed Ronnie into an arms treaty with the Russians because she wanted him to win a Nobel Prize. So maybe astrology was healthier than whatever the rest of the nuke-Managua globo-cops were smoking in the Reagan White House. That Hillary should talk to Eleanor Roosevelt bothers some of us less than the fact that her husband obviously doesn't. ... Isn't it amazing that women have invented or designed or discovered the prototype computer, nitrate fertilizer, penicillin, integral calculus, food refrigeration, space helmets, atomic parity, automatic flight control, pulsars and even DNA, not to mention square-bottomed bags, ice cream cones, vacuum canning and the gardenia. And yet we're still afraid of what they'll whisper into the ears of their powerful husbands. Might we at least concede that the people we'll marry say more about us than the people we select for the second place on the ticket of our glory-hounding selves; nobody elects vice presidents, either. Our pathological fear of Hillary and any other uppity woman, whatever her politics, is a form of foot-binding as well as a species of hate radio."
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John Leonard on CBS's "Sunday Morning," September 1, 1996.
Legal Times
"Looking back on that argument, [Sarah Weddington] laughs as she recalls that Justice Potter Stewart asked her where in the Constitution she found the right [to abortion] for which she had so fervently argued. "Any place we find it will be okay with you, right?" Stewart asked Weddington."
—
Legal Times, March 4, 1985, page A35.
Legman, Gershon ('sexologist')
"Kinsey's not-very-secret intention was to "respectabilize" homosexuality and certain sexual perversions ... He did not hesitate to extrapolate his utterly inadequate and inconclusive samplings to the whole population of the United States, not to say the world ... This is pure propaganda, and is ridiculously far from the mathematical or statistical science pretended."
—
Gershon Legman. The Horn Book: Studies in Erotic Folklore and Bibliography [New Hyde Park, New York: University Books], 1964 [NOTE: Legman was the original compiler for Alfred Kinsey's pornography collection].
Lerner, Jonathan
"... I had become warped enough to help found the Weathermen, a cult of leftist cynicism and violence. We were contemptuous of others, convinced we had the answers, and willing to impose them through violence. In other words, we were terrorists. That's not where I thought I was heading. I started out wanting to humanize the world, bit ended up perverting my own best instincts and dreams. I lied. I stole. I put innocent people in danger ..."
—
Jonathan Lerner. "I Was a Terrorist." The Washington Post Magazine, February 24, 2002, pages 24 to 28 and 38 to 40.
Lessenberry, Jack (Detroit Metro Times editorial writer)
"Lessenberry bewails the fact that Dr. K[evorkian] has been largely forgotten by the media and the U.S. public, and observes "Oregon voters even enacted — twice — a law allowing the terminally ill to ask their doctors for a lethal dose, a law which remains in force, despite the best efforts of Ayatollah Ashcroft and the religions nuts to take away their freely chosen right"."
—
An article in the Fall 2002 National Capital Area Hemlock News and Views describing the views of Detroit Metro Times editorial writer Jack Lessenberry as put forth in his editorial "Kevorkian's Issue is Still Alive." Detroit Metro Times, August 21, 2002 [NOTE: This quote is so hypocritical because Lessenberry and his cronies never seem to mind when liberals go to the court system to overturn the will of the people when they vote against abortion, euthanasia, pornography or 'gay rights.' But let the people vote for these evils, and suddenly they're untouchable, and any attempt to fight them is immoral].
Levine, Judith
"... the fear that children are having intercourse in middle school is largely unfounded; only two in ten girls and three in ten boys do so by the age of fifteen [page xxiv] ... Indeed, the concept that sex poses an almost existential peril to children, that it robs them of their very childhood, was born only about 150 years ago [page xxvii] ... When we are ready to invite children into the community as fully participating citizens ... That will be the moment at which we respect their sexual autonomy and agency and realize that one way to help them cultivate the capacity to enjoy life is to educate their capacity for sexual joy [page 224] ... Sex is not harmful to children. It is a vehicle to self-knowledge, love, healing, creativity, adventure, and intense feelings of aliveness. There are many ways even the smallest children can partake of it" [page 225].
—
Judith Levine. Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex [University of Minnesota Press], 2002 [NOTE: Levine cites the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) as a key influence in her work, along with other child-sex advocates such as James Kincaid, author of Child Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture. She also positively cites the 1998 article in the American Psychological Association's (APA) flagship publication Psychological Bulletin that urged people to use "neutral" terms such as "adult-child sex," and said that not all adult-child sex is harmful and some might even be beneficial. The foreword to the book, by former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, states that parents have "an overwhelming desire for their children to receive detailed sex education at school as well as at home," and attacks the "religious right" as "people who have a love affair with the fetus but won't take care of children once they are born." The solution, Elders says, is that "children must be taught sexual ethics. ... Teaching children to have self-respect, to feel good about themselves, to make good decisions: to me, that is sexuality education"].
Levine, Lena (Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA))
"Our alternative solution is to be ready as educators and parents to help young people obtain sex satisfaction before marriage. By sanctioning sex before marriage, we will prevent fear and guilt. We must also relieve those who have them of their fears and guilt feelings, and we must be ready to provide young boys and girls with the best contraception measures available so they will have the necessary means to achieve sexual satisfaction without having to risk possible pregnancy. We owe this to them."
—
Dr. Lena Levine. "Psychosexual Development." Planned Parenthood News, Summer 1953, page 10.
Levy, Susu (Foundation for Optimal Planetary Survival (FOPS))
"Stephen Mumford courageously exposes the papal plot against population control. The Vatican and the far Right are not alone, however, in promoting the unlimited migration — the ultimate consequence of overpopulation. By rigidly adhering to 'tradition,' rabbis, ministers and so-called human-rights advocates of every ilk are sacrificing future life on Earth by their misguided compassion ..."
—
Susu Levy, President, Foundation for Optimal Planetary Survival (FOPS), favorably commenting on Stephen Mumford's virulently anti-Catholic on-line book The Life and Death of NSSM 200: How the Destruction of Political Will Doomed a U.S. Population Policy, downloaded from http://www.iti.com/iti/kzpg/ on September 22, 1998 (no longer available). The comment is included in the document.
Lewis, Anthony (New York Times)
"The propriety of the methods used to discourage children is a fair question. But outsiders should not make ringing statements about it without understanding the reality of the problem China faces."
—
New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, quoted in "The Week." National Review, September 20, 1985, pages 12 and 14.
Lidz, Joseph
"Let us be frank about this. When the psychiatrist says that there is a suicidal risk, in many instances he does not mean that at all, but feels that there are strong socioeconomic grounds for a therapeutic abortion. Since the only ground for abortion in many states is if it is felt there is threat of death, suicidal risk is thus established as the only legal way out of the situation. ..."
"There are a great many originally unwanted children in this world who have become very deeply wanted after birth, and I don't think this is simply reaction formation. There are women who do not realize how gratifying it can be to mother a baby until they actually have it in their arms, and maternal feelings are aroused by the tangible situation."
—
Joseph Lidz, M.D., quoted by Mary Calderone, M.D., Medical Director of Planned Parenthood/World Population (PP/WP) (editor). Abortion in the United States (proceedings of Planned Parenthood's 1955 conference on induced abortion) [New York City: Paul B. Hoeber, Inc.], 1956, page 127.
Light, Allie
"People were once put to death by the church for owning books, priests believing that only they should know how to read. Today, apparently, some doctors are descended from those priests."
—
Allie Light. The Arizona Daily Star, February 25, 1997. Described in Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 1997 Report on Anti-Catholicism, available on-line at the Catholic League's Web site here.
Linkola, Pentti (Finnish eco-extremist)
"Those who hate life try to pull more people on board and drown everybody. Those who love and respect life use axes to chop off the extra hands hanging on the gunwale. ... In democratic countries destruction of nature and ecological disasters have accumulated most. Our only hope lies in strong central government and uncompromising control of the individual citizen."
—
Finnish eco-extremist Pentti Linkola on the "earth as lifeboat" analogy, quoted in Cletus Nelson. "Extinguish Humans, Save the World: Pentti Linkola and Ecology's Forgotten History." EYE Magazine, November/December 1999 [NOTE: Linkola once said that another world war would be "a happy occasion for the planet." He is a fisherman, amateur biologist, advocate of mandatory abortion and involuntary sterilization, and adversary of Amnesty International, the Vatican, and Third-World economic aid. Linkola is a fan of eugenics, and would deny "genetically unfit" parents the right to bear children, and would enforce a strict two-child on the rest. The two primary occupations would be fishing and organic farming. The state would openly discourage technological research, and all cars would be confiscated so that roads could be cleared for additional forest growth. Individual rights would be abolished in favor of the "rights of the earth," with an armed "Green Police" enforcing the new regime].
Llamas, Marta
"The non-existence of a feminine or masculine essence allows us to exclude the supposed superiority of one sex over the other and also even to question if there is a "natural" form of human sexuality. ... In certain circles psychoanalytical reflection is arriving at a slow acceptance of homosexuality as an equal option to the psychological condition of heterosexuality. In other words, one may say that heterosexuality is the result of a psychic process, or even that it is not "natural"."
—
Marta Llamas. "Cuerpo: Diferencia Sexual y G‚nero," from Cristina Delgado. "Definiciones Estra¡das de Documentatos Usados en Foro Mar del Plata," pages 2 and 3. Also quoted in Dale O'Leary. The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality [Lafayette, Louisiana: Vital Issues Press], 1997, page 71.
Loisdotter, Marlene (history teacher)
"History would read differently if it had been recorded equally by women. Everyone would learn that the cotton gin, the computer, and the novel were invented by women. That a woman was a well-loved pharaoh; another, a highly-regarded Pope. That for most of human existence — worldwide — God was a woman."
—
History teacher Marlene Loisdotter. "Women's History Month: How My Students See Women's History." Progressive Woman [Portland, Oregon], March 1991, page 1.
Lords of Acid (hard rock band)
"(Young boys) Ohhh ... dressed up in leather legs I wanna make them shine (Come now) Do my specialty ... number 69 [oral sex]. (My boys) Shock me and thrill me so you know what I desire. (You're hot) Nasty and spicy enough to quench my fire ... (Young boys) Soft and so kissable I wanna feel their touch. Youthful and healthy love that never stops. (Take all) It's unbelievable, squeeze you till you drop."
—
The hard rock band "Lords of Acid." "Young Boys." Voodoo U (American Recordings, owned by Time-Warner).
Lovejoy, Thomas (Director of Earth Day 1990)
"Unless there is a major shift in the rate in which policy is developed or changed, it's likely that we are simply not going to make it ... It's not very far off before the problems are so big that it's almost beyond our capacity to recover ... We are in a sense, or should be, at war with our life-styles and that is something we've never had to face with our species before."
—
Biologist Thomas Lovejoy, a director of Earth Day 1990, at a conference on the global environment at the Smithsonian Institution which was sponsored by the Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller foundations. Quoted in Gary Benoit. "The Greatest Sham on Earth." The New American, March 26, 1990, pages 7 to 12.
Lowey, Nita (Congresswoman, D.-NY)
"I'd tell my constituents, 'Send a letter. Say you were raped. Say it was incest. Say you have heart disease.'"
—
Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D.-NY), Chair of the House Reproductive Choice Caucus, telling women how to lie to obtain abortion funding when eligibility for abortion funding under the Hyde Amendment was expanded to include rape and incest in the Summer of 1992. Quoted in Michael Kramer. "Will Abortion Be Covered?" Time Magazine, September 27, 1993, page 40.
Lucero, Bruce (abortionist)
"What we're going to do is set two little boxes in our income-tax statement. If you believe in pro-choice, you pay only $300 in taxes so that you pay for a woman to have an abortion. And if you're opposed to abortion, you check the other little box and you pay $3,000 to raise an illegitimate child."
—
Abortionist Bruce Lucero on a local radio talk show. Quoted by the Birmingham News, February 22, 1994.
Luker, Kristin
"In Latin America the introduction of more effective contraception led to an increase in the abortion rate. ... after couples have made a commitment to lower fertility, they are less willing to tolerate mistakes when they occur. In the United States, therefore, one could assume that the availability of the Pill — a virtually 100 percent effective contraceptive — would have created a population of people who had made important life commitments that depend on a very high level of fertility control."
"Having a baby and giving it up for adoption, as pro-life people advocate, is not seen by most pro-choice people as a moral solution to the abortion problem. To transform a fetus into a baby and then send it out into a world where the parents can have no assurance that it will be well-loved and cared for is, for pro-choice people, the height of moral irresponsibility."
—
Kristin Luker. Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984, page 112.
"To obtain information on these points the author analyzed medical records and conducted lengthy interviews of a large sample of women who were clients of a California abortion clinic. She found that eight out of ten women obtaining abortions had previously used contraception, but then — for reasons that appeared sufficient to them — elected to take chances."
—
Kristin Luker. Taking Chances: Abortion and the Decision Not to Contracept. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. Inside front dust jacket cover.
Lukits, Ann
"Abortion was only declared illegal and condemned by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1800's. The Catholic Church condoned abortion until the fetus "quickened," meaning the time when a pregnant woman first feels the unborn child moving."
—
Ann Lukits. "The Agony of Abortion." The Kingston, Ontario Whig Standard, September 24, 1983, page 1.
Lund, Caroline
"Who are the real murderers — the women who wish to control their reproductive lives by having the right to terminate pregnancy, or those who want to declare those women criminals and force them to resort to the horrors of back-street abortionists? ... According to medical authorities, thousands of women die each year from botched illegal abortions ... What kind of "respect for life" is it that justifies making women into breeders against their will? The real "disrespect for human life" is the harm done to women, to whole families, and to unwanted children by anti-abortion laws.
"Government experimentation on Black people as in the Tuskegee syphilis study, forced sterilization and population control schemes aimed against welfare recipients and Black and Latino people, and anti-abortion laws forcing women to bear children against their will — those are all policies aimed at controlling people's lives. ...
"Anti-abortion speakers compare the abortion rights movement with Hitler's policies of mass murder, euthanasia, and experimentation with human beings. But they never mention the fact that Hitler outlawed abortion and contraception, declaring that women's place was with children, kitchen and church — Kinder, Kuche, Kirche."
—
Essays by Caroline Lund entitled "Why Abortion is Not Murder" and "Abortion and Respect for Life" in a 24-page booklet entitled "Abortion Rights in Danger!" [New York City: Pathfinder Press], December 1976 [emphasis in the original] [NOTE: The articles in this booklet originally appeared in the Communist and Socialist publications The Militant, December 22 and 29, 1972, March 2 and 16, 1973, November 19, 1976, and December 10, 1976; The Young Socialist, May 1975; and in the International Socialist Review, December 1976. The old pro-abortion lie that Hitler was "pro-life" has been around for a very long time. For evidence that the Nazis were pro-abortion and anti-Catholic, click here].
Lundberg, George
"Americans are constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom. This editor considers abortion to be a religious issue — a decision to be reached by the pregnant woman, after consultation with the father (if possible), members of her family, perhaps a religious adviser, and the woman's physician. I believe that one woman's abortion is not the business of police, lawyers, courts, the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, the Congress of the United States, various state legislatures, or anybody else except the individuals named above. This editor has not performed an abortion and believes that he could not.
"Abortion is killing — regardless of length or stage of gestation. However, as a practical matter, this editor recognizes that abortion is considered necessary by many people on a situational basis and that many abortions will be done, often unrelated to what beliefs may have been held previously by the participants and regardless of any laws."
—
George D. Lundberg, MD, editor, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). "JAMA, Abortion, and Editorial Responsibility." JAMA, August 26, 1998, page 740.
Lykken, David (professor of psychology)
"Subdivision 1 [APPLICATION: REQUIREMENTS]. Parents resident in Minnesota who expect the birth of their biological child after the effective date of this section shall apply to the court administrator of the district court in the county in which one or both of them reside for a parental license. Requirements for licensure are:
(1)
both parents must have reached their 21st birthday;
(2)
the parents are legally married to each other;
(3)
the parents can demonstrate that they are now, and can be expected to continue to be, economically self-supporting;
(4)
the parents can provide the assurance of a licensed physician that neither suffer from a disabling mental disorder; and
(5)
a search of police records reveals that neither parent has been convicted of a felony.
"Subd. 2 [EXEMPTION]. Parents who do not meet one or more of the requirements in subdivision 1 may apply to the district court in their county of residence for an exemption. The burden of proof is on the parents to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the court that their custody is in the best interests of the child.
"Subd. 3 [VIOLATION]. Failure of the parents to apply for a parental license in a timely fashion, or the birth of a child to unlicensed parents, shall establish both biological parents to be in violation of this section and subject to its sanctions for the violation. ..."
"Subd. 9 [REPORTING BY PHYSICIANS]. Any physician practicing in Minnesota, upon learning of the unlicensed pregnancy of a woman residing in this state, shall report that fact to the child protection agency of her county of residence within one week of discovery. That agency shall, upon receiving such a report, immediately investigate the situation and, if the mother-to-be does not meet the requirements for parental licensure, institute the actions called for in subdivisions 4 to 8" [punishments, home visits, physical examinations, etc.].
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December 1995 amendment to Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 257, Section 1, proposed by Professor David T. Lykken, Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota.
"What I would propose as requirements for licensure [to have a child] would be a mature married couple, economically independent, having no criminal record or debilitating mental illness, who had both passed a basic course in parenting at a local community college.
"Harder would be deciding what to do about infractions. Unlicensed conception would be itself a violation and both the pregnant woman and the responsible man would be subject to legal sanctions. If you come in from the woods with an illegal one-year-old on your back, you must obtain a license if you plan to keep her [NOTE: The Chinese call this "childbirth on the run"].
"A woman who is pregnant but does not qualify for licensure would be installed in a maternity home where she would remain under supervision for the duration of the pregnancy. A woman who gets pregnant under these circumstances, knowing that she will not be allowed to keep the baby, is a woman with a problem. ...
"Men or women (including boys and girls) who are convicted for a second time of participating in an illegal conception, could be required to accept a reversible medical procedure rendering them sterile until such time as they meet the requirements for licensure. A simple, long-acting hormonal treatment (Norplant) is already available for women and I shall assume that market forces would make something similar available for men. ...
"Most of what we call the underclass would be ineligible for licensure unless and until they get a job, get married, and get out of the underclass. ..."
—
Professor David T. Lykken, Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, quoted in "Want to Have a Baby? Not Until You Get Your License!" Law & Politics, December 1995, pages 17 to 19.
"Repeat [child abuse] offenders might be required to submit to an implant of Norplant as a way to keep them from having another baby for five years. ... If you live in the projects on welfare, then you can't have a baby. And that sounds awful. ... But the question is, if you live in a plague area, have you a right to bring a child into a plague area?"
—
David Lykken, professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, quoted in William Norman Grigg. "Are You Fit to Be a Parent?" The New American, January 23, 1995, pages 12 to 14 [NOTE: Lykken says that if children were born to unlicensed children, the state would intervene immediately. Licenses would be checked in maternity wards. Unlicensed parents would immediately have their children seized, and adopted out. Adoptions would be permanent].
Lynn, Barry (American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU))
"[A national discussion on pornography] begins with the erroneous assumption that explicit sexual speech is a major national problem. This poses great, great dangers to the First Amendment. ... Much of the hoopla seems designed to scare the producers and distributors of sexually explicit materials, which is the kind of chilling effect we were afraid of. ... What I deny is that no study now or ever will demonstrate that those people [sex abusers] are caused to be the kind of people they are because they look at pornography."
—
Barry Lynn, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), defending child pornography. Quoted in "Attorney General Makes Promise to Prosecute Obscenity 'With Vengeance.'" National Federation for Decency Journal, November/December 1986, page 1, and "ACLU Defends Child Pornography." National Federation for Decency Journal, September 1986, page 9 [NOTE: The ACLU laughs at the idea that porn has any influence on kids. Strangely, it simultaneously demands that no trace of religion appear in our textbooks, and that no teacher even dare to mention God for fear of "corrupting" school kids].
Lyvely, Chin
"How come they [right-to-lifers] don't get upset over a little kid having its tonsils out? That's worse than having an abortion any day!"
"It's hard work to have a baby! Then two years of slave labor and 16 years of responsibility! You never have a moment's freedom! The simplest trip to the grocery store has to be planned like a military campaign! From the moment you decide not to have an abortion, that kid is going to determine your life!"
—
"Abortion Eve," 1973 comic book by Chin Lyvely and Joyce Sutton [NOTE: In October 1977, Getting it Together, the newsletter of the Youth and Student Affairs Division of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), recommended "Abortion Eve" as a "quality publication"].
"Those old guys that make the rules, they never raised any kids. You can't let them boss you around when you got problems they don't know nothing about! ... I've been confessin' and confessin' and all it does is get me Hail Marys and more kids ...
—
Evita, a Hispanic "Catholic" woman, ridiculing the Catholic Church in "Abortion Eve," a 1973 comic book by Chin Lyvely and Joyce Sutton, pages 3 and 16 [NOTE: In October 1977, Getting it Together, the newsletter of the Youth and Student Affairs Division of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), recommended "Abortion Eve" as a "quality publication"].
On the back cover of the comic book "Abortion Eve" was a caricature of a pregnant Virgin Mary with an idiot Alfred E. Neuman face, saying "What, me worry?"
—
"Abortion Eve," 1973 comic book by Chin Lyvely and Joyce Sutton [NOTE: In October 1977, Getting it Together, the newsletter of the Youth and Student Affairs Division of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), recommended "Abortion Eve" as a "quality publication"].
For the Table of Contents for HLI's Anti-Life Quote Archive, click here.
