(LifeSiteNews) – In 2014, then-Vice President Joe Biden claimed in a July 4 address that same-sex “marriage” – which had not yet been imposed on the entire country by the Supreme Court – fulfills “the spirit” of the Declaration of Independence. During the same speech he called same-sex “marriage” the “civil rights issue of our day, making it clear that you should be able to marry whoever you love — period.”
Nearly a decade later, now-President Joe Biden signed the so-called Respect for Marriage Act enshrining same-sex “marriage” into federal law. But same-sex “marriage” has largely faded as an issue debated by the public – now, conservative warnings about the slippery slope have come to pass and debates about drag shows for kindergarteners and gender mutilating drugs and surgeries for kids have taken the main stage.
Below is the text of the original article LifeSite published on July 8, 2014.
Biden: Gay marriage ‘fulfills… the spirit of the Declaration of Independence’
According to Vice President Joe Biden, states that defend true marriage today are just as guilty of oppression as King George was when the United States declared their independence from the British crown 238 years ago.
In a July 4 speech at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the Declaration was signed on that date in 1776, Biden told onlookers that same-sex “marriage” should be celebrated as “the civil rights issue of our day, making it clear that you should be able to marry whoever you love — period.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, ultimately that’s what we’re celebrating today — the continuation of the expansion of the notion that all men are created equal,” Biden said. “There’s been a constant march in America on the road to guaranteeing every man, woman and child the dignity that you’re entitled to. … That’s what these men who said in this building behind me fully understood.”
“The landmark events we celebrate today make clear that the narrow-minded and reactionary forces of the past and the present will never prevail in America,” Biden said. “We have a lot more to do to fulfill the promise and meaning of the Declaration.”
One assumes the “narrow-minded and reactionary forces” to whom Biden referred are those who oppose gay “marriage” on religious grounds – many of whom have faced lawsuits and other legal persecution for refusing to participate in gay weddings.
The irony in comparing such people to a tyrannical monarchy, while elevating the very people who seek to punish them for their beliefs to the status of freedom fighters, appeared to be completely lost on Biden.
Biden, who is Roman Catholic, first announced his support for same-sex “marriage” – which the Church vehemently opposes – in 2012, during an episode of Meet the Press.
“I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual – men and women marrying – are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties,” Biden said on the show. “And quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that.”