Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart unpacks the significance of the fact that the president of the United States used an inaugural address to acknowledge and affirm the place of gay people in the history and ongoing story of America.
At no point was President Obama's refrain of “We the people” in his second inaugural more powerful than when he invoked it to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.
The women's rights movement got started in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848. The black civil rights movement gripped the nation's consciousness in Selma, Ala., in 1965. And the modern gay rights movement got its start on June 28, 1969, when the gay patrons of the Stonewall Bar in New York City's Greenwich Village rioted against police harassment.
Obama called those warriors for equality and inclusion "pioneers." And he said, "It is now our generation's task to carry on" what they began. He called it a journey. One that is long, but one that won't be complete without lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender Americans.
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.
Read Jonathan Capehart's entire piece at the Washington Post.
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