Contentious Issues Quotes

A Supreme Court ruling is supposed to provide clarity to contentious legal issues, but in the case of reproductive rights, it was just the beginning of a long, heated, and grueling debate.

When you start talking about abortion and gay rights, people take that seriously and they're passionate about it - on both sides.

The challenge is to lend conviction even to the voices which advocate views I find personally abhorrent, whether they are political Islamists or officers justifying a coup.

What I do is try to stay away from the hot subjects.

The path of progress cuts through the four-way intersection of the moral, medical, religious and political - and whichever way you turn, you are likely to run over someone's deeply held beliefs.

My great desire has been to remove from the political arena a question of this kind that is calculated to prevent us getting a verdict upon the important political issues that separate the two parties in this country.

Immigration is the most difficult issue I've ever dealt with, and I've dealt with some tough issues: drones, gays in the military, WikiLeaks, Guantanamo. But immigration is hardest because there are so few people willing to talk and build consensus. Everybody's firmly made up their mind. It's a polarized issue.

Really and truly, I don't like talking about refereeing decisions.

In general, the best advice I can give people is to take criticism seriously, apologize for anything you have done wrong, and pull back from conflict. Of course, if you are right on a content matter, you should press forward in the interest of quality, but conflict often has a way of taking on a life of its own, unfortunately.

It seems to me it's perfectly possible to vehemently disagree with a piece of work and to say that it's offensive and insulting and so on and so on. And you're absolutely entitled to do that and to speak back, if you like, against that piece of speech with all the vehemence at your disposal. I mean, that's legitimate. Even other things. People have a right to demonstrate.

What you saw was the people of New York having a debate, talking through these issues. It was contentious. It was emotional. But ultimately, they made a decision to recognize civil marriage. And I think that's exactly how things should work.

Unfortunately, the problem of the free speech argument is that you have to defend people you can't stand.

No one understands that the First Amendment is only important if you are going to offend somebody. If you're not going to offend somebody, you don't need protection of the First Amendment.

Writers who take on polarising issues are apt to step on a few toes.

There are issues in this country that a lot of people feel strongly about.

I think controversy is an interesting thing in that it usually goes hand in hand with starting conversations that surround taboo or under-discussed topics that need to be discussed and need to be less in the shadows, in my opinion.

There are things I take sides about, like capital punishment, which it seems to me there is only one side about: it is evil. But there are two or three sides to sexual harassment, and the moment you get into particular cases, there is injustice in every conceivable direction. It's a mess.

The curse of modern times is, that almost everything does create controversy.

Some matters are simply contentious. Sometimes you're never going to get it right.

I virtually never use the term "gun control" because that would make us anti-gun. Everything we touch is unpopular and controversial.

Fur is a contentious issue. Meat is a contentious issue. GMOs are a contentious issue. I think this whole thing going on about whether or not products should be labeled if they have GMOs in them - I, as a consumer, would like to know if I'm eating GMO food. If I choose to buy it then it's my choice.

The Constitution empowers the people to resolve our day's most contentious issues. When judges forget this basic truth, they do a disservice to our democracy and to our constitution.

School prayer, abortion, and school busing are indeed controversial issues. I doubt that there ever will be complete agreement on the public-policy questions they raise.

All of my books deal in a very rough, rude fashion with subjects about which there are great conflicts of opinion.

I don't want to paint myself as some kind of saint - that would be laughable - but I do think I've been able over the years to write humanely about subjects who are controversial and even contemptible. I've profiled pedophiles, stalkers, serial rapists, prison gang members and corrupt politicians.