On the recordDecember 18, 2010
I think that in considering this matter today we have an opportunity not just to right a wrong, not just to honor the service of a group of American patriots who happen to be gay and lesbian, not just to make our military more effective, but to advance the values that the Founders of our country articulated in our original American documents. From the beginning, America has been a different Nation. We did not define ourselves based on our borders. Our Founders defined America based on our values, and none stated more powerfully than those words in the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence that: There are self-evident truths. This is a political statement, a constitutional statement, but also a religious statement. There are self-evident truths, and one of them is that all of us are created equal and endowed by our Creator with those unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
