Patricia Arquette Uses Oscar Acceptance to Highlight Enviroment, Women's Rights (Full Text)

While everyone predicted that Patricia Arquette would win the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, few could have predicted that she would use her limited acceptance speech time to champion some of the causes most dear to her heart.

In addition to discussing environmental causes, Arquette said, "To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else's rights," Arquette said. "It's our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America." Check out the full text from her speech below.

As they should, many of the women in the audience, including Meryl Streep, were especially thrilled by Arquette's use of the opportunity.

Jesus. Thank you to the Academy, to my beautiful, powerful nominees to IFC, to Jonathan Sehring, John Sloss, Cathleen Sutherland, Molly Mann, David Dicamila, our whole cast and our crew, my Boyhood family who I love and admire, our brilliant director Richard Linklater, the impeccable Ethan Hawke, my lovelies Ellar Coltrane and Lorelei Linklater. Thomas and Paul, thank you for giving me my beautiful children. And Enzo and Harlow, you're the deepest people I know. My friends who all work so hard to make this world a better place. To my parents, Rossano, Richmond, Alexis, and David, to my favorite painter in the world, Eric White, for the inspiration of living with a genius, to my heroes, volunteers and experts who help me bring ecological sanitation to the developing world with Givelove.org.

To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else's equal rights, it's our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America.