I don’t know whether or not Vice President Joe Biden will decide to run for President in 2016, but if he does, the speech he gave last night to a group of 3500 LGBT activists and allies with the Human Rights Campaign may well be seen as the moment when his campaign was unofficially launched.
Sounding incredibly presidential, Biden told a story of him and his father seeing two men in a parking lot. One appeared to be going to work. The two men kissed each other goodbye and then parted ways. The Vice President said his dad told him:
“Joey, they are in love with each other. It’s that simple.”
Then Biden commented directly on the Supreme Court ruling in July which finally legalized same-sex marriage in America, telling the gathered activists:
“You left the Supreme Court absolutely no choice, no choice whatsoever but to recognize the simple proposition my father taught me 50 years ago. And I mean that. The very fact that we finally recognize that love is not a political matter, it’s a basic human right, the fact that we recognize that is because of you…You’ve changed the world in which my grandchildren will grow up…You did so much more than anything those of us in public life ever did.”
The Vice President also reminded the audience that those who support equality for all people are in the majority:
“The American people are already with you. Look at the numbers. Oh, there are homophobes still left. Most of the are running for President, I think.”
Biden then paid tribute to LGBT soldiers who have served their country so honorably despite years of discrimination, and he said the country still has to do more to eradicate homelessness among LGBT youth, which Biden said too often comes because teens are kicked out of their homes. And he signaled that the next battle for human rights will be transgender rights.
Joe Biden may not run for President, but it doesn’t really matter. He will go down in history as one of the best and most inspirational Vice Presidents this country has ever seen.
Watch Joe Biden’s Speech
Featured image by Flickr available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
