Marianne Williamson in 2019-2021 Town Halls
On Abortion:
Abortion is about private morality; government has no role
I believe that abortion is a moral issue, but I believe that it is an issue of private morality. I believe that it is an issue of private rather than public morality. The government should have nothing to do with our private morals.
And therefore, I do not believe the government should have anything to do with a decision a woman is making for her body, anything that she does or does not do.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Civil Rights:
Reparations are an appropriate response to country's history
I don't believe that the average American is a racist. I do believe that the average American is vastly undereducated about the history of race in the United States. Remember, that two-and-a-half centuries of slavery was followed by a hundred years of
what today we would call domestic terrorism. What do you call lynchings if not domestic terrorism? This country will not heal until we take a serious moral inventory. Racism is a character defect. Whatever it costs, it's time to do this.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Civil Rights:
Attacks on gay rights is attack on us all
I want you to know why I would support you as a LGBTQ person. I would support you because you're an American. I don't want to just talk to you as a lesbian or as an LGBTQ. I don't want to talk to somebody else because you're black, you're white, you're
gay, you're straight, you're a Jew, you're Christian, you're Muslim. I want to talk to you because you're an American. Martin Luther King said injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. What you do to a lesbian, you do to me. Stop right there.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Education:
Wipe out college loans burdening the young
You can't be all that you can be when you're so weighed down. How am I going to pay these college loans? This is where our economic good comes from. Economic good does not come from a few major corporate moguls who just drop some
crumbs off the table when they're in the mood to. Our economic good comes from the fact that each and every one of us are able to actualize the extraordinary, unlimited, God-given potential. That's why I want to take these college loan debts away.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Energy & Oil:
Climate change biggest crisis of our time
On climate change: It is the greatest moral challenge of our age. We need carbon sequestration. We need the reforestation. We need to develop sustainable energy systems. We need new modes of electric transportation, et cetera.
Enough with these incremental changes here and these incremental changes there. The climate is a crisis. We have 12 years to deal with it.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Environment:
Deal with factory farming by having environmentalists at EPA
We would have, if I were president of the United States, a world-class environmentalist at the head of the EPA. No more chemical company executives heading the EPA. No more oil company heading the EPA.
We need to deal with the animal factory farming. Enough with these incremental changes here and these incremental changes there.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Families & Children:
Need a cabinet department to focus on children and youth
We have millions of American children who go to school every day in schools that do not even have the adequate school supplies with which to teach 8-year-old to read. If they can't read, the chances of high school graduation, it's drastically
diminished, and the chances of incarceration is drastically increased. We should rescue these children, no differently than we would rescue them from a natural disaster. We need a United States cabinet-level Department of Children and Youth.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Foreign Policy:
Support Israeli security & Palestinian human rights
I believe that the United States must have an absolute simultaneous and equal support of the legitimate security concerns of Israel and the human rights and dignities and economic opportunities of the Palestinian people.
The leaders of the Palestinian Authority will know that you say is going to sway me from my commitment to the legitimate security of
Israel, and Israeli leaders similarly will know nothing is going to sway me from my commitment to the human rights and the dignity of the Palestinian people.
It's been since Jimmy Carter that we've had a U.S. president to say flat out those settlements are illegal. In me, you would have a president who says those settlements are illegal.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Foreign Policy:
Return moral principles to our foreign policy
I want the moral leadership of our State Department back. When you're willing to -- for the sake of a $100 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, go along with support for a genocidal war that we know has starved tens of thousands of Yemenis, when
Mike Pompeo says, "well, sometimes you can have strategic partnerships with people who do not share your values," no, you can't. It means you have sacrificed your values. I want the moral principles that should be central to American foreign policy back.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Government Reform:
DC should have representation in Congress
In terms of D.C., of course, you should have representation. I think when the founders said that D.C. should not have representation, they simply did not foresee a time when the kind of population in
D.C. would exist as it does now. Absolutely D.C. should have representation.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Government Reform:
Must address election security & Russian interference
Contrary to the way this president behaves, I would actually listen to the U.S. intelligence agencies. The U.S. intelligence agencies have an uncommon uniformity on this issue. They're very clear that there has been Russian interference. I will make it
clear to the American people, number one, that I agree with our intelligence agencies that this is happening and, number two, that we're on it. In terms of the voting machines, we must have paper ballots. We absolutely must have paper ballots.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Gun Control:
Gun laws are driven by profits of gun manufacturers
In terms of guns, I certainly understand that it's a Second Amendment right. And we know that our gun policies in the United States are not driven by Second Amendment. That's just an illusion. We don't have commonsense gun safety legislation because,
God forbid, it should cut into the short-term profits of gun manufacturers. That is immoral. The majority of the American people want universal background checks. The majority of the American people want to outlaw bump stocks. The majority of the
American people want to get these military assault rifles out of the hands of the average citizen. And until the American people realize that we need to get rid of the nefarious influence of money on our political system, if you want commonsense
gun safety legislation, you're going to not only have to vote for a president who stands for that, you're going to have to vote for congresspeople who stand for that and senators who stand for that. This issue is in your hands, not just mine.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Health Care:
Make Medicare for All a public option
I'd like to see a Medicare-for-All type of plan that's presented as a public option. I think a lot of people would gravitate to that. In addition, if people want private insurance, if they like their private insurers, or want to augment it, then they
should be able to. The issue is why are we going to do that. The reason we are going to do that is because you are a citizen of the United States. No citizen in the richest country of the world should have to be worrying about this.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
On Immigration:
Need to examine how US policy created border crisis
[Regarding the Mexican border]: The real crisis is not just that so many people are coming over the border. The real crisis is the human despair and desperation that has led them to take their children on their backs over hundreds
and even thousands of miles of desert. Nobody does this because things are going well.
We need to look deeply at American foreign policy in Latin America and how we have contributed to situations where there was level of despair because too often in our foreign policy,
just like in our domestic, our government has done more to be supporting short-term profits for major corporate interests than people.
Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 14, 2019
Page last updated: Apr 07, 2021