Episcopal Bishop Pre-Inaugural Benediction

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president. O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will.

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic "answers" we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future. Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah. Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger. Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States. Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people. Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times. Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead. Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States. Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims. Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods. And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace. - Amen

The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Opening Inaugural Event, Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, January 18, 2009

President-Elect Barack Obama Pre-Inaugural Speech

"...as I stand here tonight, what gives me the greatest hope of all is not the stone and marble that surrounds us today, but what fills the spaces in between. It is you - Americans of every race and region and station who came here because you believe in what this country can be and because you want to help us get there. It is the same thing that gave me hope from the day we began this campaign for the presidency nearly two years ago; a belief that if we could just recognize ourselves in one another and bring everyone together - ... Latino, Asian, and Native American; black and white, gay and straight, disabled and not - then not only would we restore hope and opportunity in places that yearned for both, but maybe, just maybe, we might perfect our union in the process.This is what I believed, but you made this belief real. You proved once more that people who love this country can change it. And as I prepare to assume the presidency, yours are the voices I will take with me every day I walk into that Oval Office - the voices of men and women who have different stories but hold common hopes; who ask only for what was promised us as Americans - that we might make of our lives what we will and see our children climb higher than we did. It is this thread that binds us together in common effort; that runs through every memorial on this mall; that connects us to all those who struggled and sacrificed and stood here before. It is how this nation has overcome the greatest differences and the longest odds - because there is no obstacle that can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change. President-Elect Barack Obama, speech at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC, January 18, 2009

Florida Circuit Court Invalidates Gay Adoption Ban

"Based on the evidence presented from experts from all over this country and abroad, it is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person’s ability to parent...The most important factor in ensuring a well adjusted child is the quality of parenting... More importantly, sexual orientation, solely, should not interfere with a child’s right to enjoy the accoutrements of a legal family... [T]his Court is satisfied that the issue is so far beyond dispute that it would be irrational to hold otherwise; the best interests of children are not preserved by prohibiting homosexual adoption. [T]he exclusion forbidding homosexuals to adopt children does not further the public morality interest it seeks to combat. Based on this scenario, there can be no rationally related public morality interest differentiating in the State’s support of a homosexual’s long-term foster care relationship with a child and a denial of their legal relationship through adoption... The contradiction between the adoption and foster care statutes defeats the public morality argument and is thus not rationally related to serving a governmental interest. This Court finds Fla. Stat. §63.042(3) violates the Petitioner and the Children’s equal protection rights guaranteed by... the Florida Constitution without satisfying a rational basis. Moreover, the statutory exclusion defeats a child’s right to permanency as provided by federal and state law... Judge Cindy Lederman, Circuit Court of the 11th Judicial Circuit, Miami-Dade County, Florida Juvenile Division, November 25, 2008

Governor of California Sees Same-Sex Marriage Happening Eventually

KING: You lost on another one, on Proposition 8. It was not your idea, but you support same-sex marriage. And the proposition banning same-sex marriage passed. Many would look at California, which is viewed as this progressive, open-minded state, and say, why? What happened?

SCHWARZENEGGER: You know, I think that the people of California just, again, have spoken on this issue, and they went against it, just like they did in the year 2000, when they voted against it in Proposition 22. And here they had a chance again. And you know, they had a very, very strong campaign, the pro-Proposition 8 people, and I think that the people that tried to defeat it did not have maybe as good a campaign or had as much money behind it, whatever. I think it is unfortunate, obviously, but it's not the end, because I think this will go back into the courts, this will go back to the Supreme Court and all this, because the Supreme Court very clearly in California has declared this unconstitutional. It's the same as in the 1948 case when blacks and whites were not allowed to marry. This is -- this falls into the same category. So, I think that we will, again, you know, maybe undo that if the court is willing to do that, and then move forward from there and again lead in that area.

KING: As a governor, from a policy perspective, are those couples who were married, same-sex couples who are already married in California, are they in jeopardy in any way?

SCHWARZENEGGER: No, not at all. No. It's just from now on. You know, it's -- there is no marriage between a man and a woman, until, like I said, the court determines (ph) it over or does anything about that.

KING: Is it a generational challenge, in your view, that maybe five or 10 or 20 years from now, it will be an easier issue?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, it's also -- it's not just easier or harder. It's just a cultural issue, also, because as you could see, because of the big turnout amongst African-Americans and Latinos, that had an effect, also, which they did not expect. So there's all kinds of other things. And I think the religious groups have done a really, you know, big campaign, a lot of them, you know, to support Proposition 8 and so on. And, you know -- so it's a very, very difficult thing.

CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, John King, guest host, interview with California Goverernor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Aired November 9, 2008

Constitution of the State of California

Article XI, Sec. 12. No contract of marriage, if otherwise duly made, shall be invalidated for want of conformity to the requirements of any religious sect. Constitution of the State of California, 1849

Article XX, Sec. 7. No contract of marriage, if otherwise duly made, shall be invalidated for want of conformity to the requirements of any religious sect. Constitution of the State of California, 1879

Connecticut Supreme Court Rules for Same-Sex Marriage

"...our conventional understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection. Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice. To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others. The guarantee of equal protection under the law, and our obligation to uphold that command, forbids us from doing so. In accordance with these state constitutional requirements, same sex couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry." Connecticut Supreme Court, October 2008

Presidential Candidate Barack Obama Opposes Discrimination

"I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination." Senator Barack Obama, August 28, 2008