Swiss Mitt is rightly being slammed for his hazy memory surrounding his anti-gay bullying past. But let’s not forget his even more pathetic excuses for not reprimanding a Republican debate crowd after it booed a gay soldier serving in Iraq. The man still has not learned to stand up for what’s right.
On President Obama’s support of marriage equality, that very soldier, Army Reserve Captain Stephen Hill, spoke eloquently and succinctly about his feeling of pride and fulfillment:
President Obama is one of the most influential people that I’ve ever, ever known. When I was deployed, I was so proud to be deployed under the first African-American president because that’s everything our country stands for: that anybody can become president in the country. And I think that when he comes up and stands up for equality for all American citizens, that’s everything that I fought for 20 years in the military for, is to have equality for everybody.
This is the distilled essence of Barack Obama’s leadership: fairness, respect, equality. That the nation is better off when all are afforded dignity and opportunity. Mitt Romney can’t touch this. And he can’t buy it.
This election is about values. We know what our guy stands for.
You, all of you who are here tonight, all who put so much heart and soul and work into this campaign, you can be the new majority who can lead this nation out of a long political darkness.
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We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. And they will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come.
We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.
It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.
Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.
And hot off the presses, President Obama
last night at George Clooney's house:
But the truth is [marriage equality] was a logical extension of what America is supposed to be. It grew directly out of this difference in visions. Are we a country that includes everybody and gives everybody a shot and treats everybody fairly and is that going to make us stronger? Are we welcoming to immigrants? Are we welcoming to people who aren’t like us? Does that make us stronger? I believe it does. So that’s what’s at stake.