Senator Sessions wants to speak in a moment, and I will be brief. I would like to thank Senator Booker for his always stirring words and for his sense of justice and fair play and leadership in so many ways. I met Jim about 1 year ago and had a brief meeting, not too long after the court decision by Judge Black in the Cincinnati Southern District Court in Ohio. I just spent a half an hour with him in my office. He never wanted and never expected to be famous. He never expected to come to Washington to meet with Senators. He never expected to travel the country giving speeches. He was once a high school teacher. He joked that more people have been with him as he traveled across the country, joked that when he spoke to crowds of hundreds or even 1,000 about his experience with his beloved John and what has happened, he wished that his students had listened to him so closely. You could hear a pin drop when he spoke to hundreds, which is not always the case when speaking as a high school teacher. But he wanted to live his life in a normal way as most Americans do. He never expected to have his story or his marriage litigated before the U.S. Supreme Court. But that is really the mark of character, that Jim has taken his grief and his pain and hoped to change the world, and that is what he is doing. His marriage is still not equal in my State of Ohio. I am embarrassed by that.…
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