President Obama today delivered the most gay-inclusive inaugural speech in history, perhaps one of the most gay-inclusive speeches by a major political leader ever. And while he used the word “gay” only once, it was the first time a President ever has in an inaugural speech.
On what is also Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the President mentioned “Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall,” all historic civil rights moments in our history.
“It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts,” the President said:
Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm.
Millions of Americans, and people around the world watched, listened — and heard the President of the United States of America call for full equality for “our gay brothers and sisters” under the law. But it cannot have escaped the President, who began writing his speech last month, that among those watching, and listening, would be members of the Supreme Court, sitting in the audience just a few yards away from the Leader of the Free World.
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Read: President Obama’s Complete 2013 Inauguration Speech (Full Text)