Yooralla, like most disability service organisations, is full of good people who are passionate about the rights of people with disabilities.
People with disabilities are simply part of diverse communities in the U.S.
The problem for many people with disabilities is not that we are not able to work a certain number of hours a week. It's that no-one will let us.
We are a society that treats people with disabilities with condescension and pity, not dignity and respect.
We often hear that people mean well: that so many just don't how to interact with people with disabilities. They're unsure of the 'right' reaction, so they default to condescension that makes them feel better in the face of their discomfort.
For me, and for many other people with disabilities, our status as disabled people is one of which we are fiercely proud.
Ricky Gervais has jokes about people with disabilities, but do I think that's a healthy thing? Yes, I really do, because he's chosen his targets very carefully, and he's thought about what he's doing.
I hope that as a professional snowboarder, Olympian, and now, a Global Ambassador for Special Olympics, I will be able to change perceptions about people with intellectual disabilities.
A lot of times, we look at people who have disabilities as, 'Oh, we can't invite these people here or there.' And I hate that, because it's inappropriate. It's so weird to me when people say they don't have friends who have disabilities.
It's worth knowing more about the complicated environmental and genetic factors that could explain why traumatic brain injuries lead to long-term disabilities in some people and not in others.
The world worries about disability more than disabled people do.
Many people with dyslexia truly suffer, and their lives are worse off for having had that disability.
I use the term 'disabled people' quite deliberately, because I subscribe to what's called the social model of disability, which tells us that we are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies and our diagnoses.
The magnitude of discrimination and stigma faced by people with disability in Australia cannot be underestimated. People do not understand disability, and people fear what they don't understand.
It became very clear to me that Yooralla was not as interested in media coverage that explored issues faced by people with disability as it was in giving a pat on the back to journalists who maintained the status quo by giving readers the warm and fuzzies over their morning paper.
People are uncomfortable about disability, and so interactions can become unintentionally uncomfortable.
Social Security is based on a principle. It's based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat.
The ways of the Lord are different from the ways of man. Man's ways remove people from office or business when they grow old or become disabled. But man's ways are not and never will be the Lord's ways.
The disabled people that do sport, they don't think about what they don't have but try to get better with what they do have. That is the same for me.
It's okay for me to make jokes about disabled people and people with horrible diseases because they make me uncomfortable, and I don't want to be like them.
