President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden listen as 9 year-old twins Zea and Luna introduce the President during the LGBT Pride Month celebration in the East Room of the White House, June 13, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
(CNSNews.com) – Speaking at an LGBT Pride Month reception at the White House on Thursday, President Barack Obama declared that the nation has reached a “turning point” regarding homosexual marriage:
“We’ve become not just more accepting; we've become more loving, as a country, and as a people. Hearts and minds change with time. Laws do, too. Change like that isn’t something that starts here in Washington, but it’s something that has the power that Washington has a great deal of difficulty resisting over time.”
He later added, “I’ll continue to support marriage equality and states’ attempts to legalize it, including in my home state of Illinois. We're not giving up on that.”
Introducing Obama at the event were Zea and Luna, the third-grade daughters of a lesbian couple:
“We asked thee president for his support of gay marriage, the children said to a rousing cheer from the homosexuals in the audience. “Because we have two moms who are just as good as other parents, and they love us a lot.” (Zea and Luna also asked the president “to help make it harder for bad guys to get guns,” and they requested more funding for schools – especially for art and physical education programs.)
When it was his turn to speak, the president talked about some of the other people in the audience and the letters he’s received from Americans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.
“Love is what I saw in Valerie and Diane’s letter from North Dakota, who’ve been together for 37 years,” Obama said. “Their son, Madison, is here, 14. They told me that when Madison was little -- he’s not little now, by the way -- he used to say that someday he was going to become president and make it legal for his moms to get married -- and now, they added, ‘I don’t think we’re going to have to wait that long.’
“Madison, I agree with you that it’s time. I agree that you should run for president,” Obama said. “I agree that we’re not going to have to wait that long -- because from Minnesota to Maryland, from the United States Senate to the NBA, it’s clear we’re reaching a turning point.
Obama has held a White House ceremony celebrating America’s homosexual community since he took office in 2009.
Obama reminded the audience of all he’s done for them – signing hate crimes legislation as well as a bill ending the ban on gays in the military. He also urged Congress to pass a law to prevent discrimination against homosexuals in the workplace.
“In 34 states, you can be fired just because of who you are or who you love,” Obama said. “That’s wrong. We’ve got to change it. There’s a bipartisan bill moving forward in the Senate that would ban discrimination against all LGBT Americans in the workplace, now and forever. We need to get that passed. I want to sign that bill. We need to get it done now.”
Obama invoked the Declaration of Independence and the Rev. Martin Luther King in calling for equality.
“It’s something that can be traced back to our Declaration of Independence -- the fundamental principle that all of us are created equal,” Obama said. “And as I said in my Inaugural Address, if we truly are created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”
He later added, “I deeply believe in something that Martin Luther King, Jr. said often, and that is that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. Eventually, America gets it right.”
Obama also took the opportunity to congratulate Nitza Quinones Alejandro – “who, just a few hours ago, was confirmed by the Senate, making her the first openly gay Hispanic federal judge in our country’s history.”