They might have added that without gender equality sustainable economic development cannot be achieved either.

FORBES: A Solution For A Struggling Global Economy: Gender Equality

It is arguable that we might not have had as much support for abortion reform, or addiction treatment, or HIV-AIDS research, or marriage equality, without them.

CNN: When celebrities share secrets, good things happen

Dying in 1926, Gertrude Bell left behind a benevolent and effective Iraq government, functioning without institutionalized corruption and intent on equality and peace.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Gertrude Bell'

We owe that legacy of progress to our mothers and aunts, grandmothers and great-grandmothers -- women who proved not only that opportunity and equality do not come without a fight, but also that they are possible.

WHITEHOUSE: Presidential Proclamation - Women��s Equality Day, 2012

The World Conference on Human Rights reaffirms the obligation of States to ensure that persons belonging to minorities may exercise fully and effectively all human rights and fundamental freedoms without any discrimination and in full equality before the law in accordance with the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities.

UNESCO: Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action

Opportunity and equality don't come without a fight, and sometimes you have got to keep fighting even after you have won some victories.

CNN: Obama adds politics to women's forum

But equality before the law, and some other kinds of liberal equality, can be universally granted without infringing anybody's rights.

ECONOMIST: Poverty and inequality

This was a fundamental shift, not made without controversy within the movement, where many worried that calling for marriage equality would unleash the fury of the Christian Right.

CNN: How the right helped launch same-sex marriage movement

We should not forget that an appeal to our courts to remedy legislative neglect is not without precedent: witness the 1954 ruling by the Warren court in the struggle for racial equality in Brown v Board of Education.

ECONOMIST: Letters | The