Barack Obama Quotes

People are realizing that being gay is just as defining as the color of our skin and it's not a choice. I'm really encouraged. I think in my lifetime we will achieve equality. I'm honored to be a part of it.

Discriminating against same-sex couples just isn't right.

No country should deny people their rights because of who they love, which is why we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere.

I want the same standard applied to homosexuals as is applied to heterosexuals.

The rights of homosexual people are human rights, and human rights are for everyone.

I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.

I don't see how you can separate human rights and the rights of all people, no matter what their sexual orientation is.

A person's safety and quality of life should not be conditioned upon who they love or how they identify.

We need to ensure that no one is denied employment, housing, opportunities, or benefits because of their sexual orientation.

The luxury of not getting judged for 'loving' who you want to love should be given to everyone - including women.

I don't believe we ought to discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation. If people are in a same-sex relationship, and they want their partner to be able to have health benefits or be designated as a beneficiary in your life insurance, there's no reason we shouldn't do that.

People should be able to love who they want to love.

Being gay is not a crime.

I believe that individuals in our country should not face discrimination for their sex or their gender or their sexual orientation.

To me gay rights is the last civil right that we have not granted in America and I think it's an enormous embarrassment.

I do not favor same-sex marriage. I oppose same-sex marriage, and that has been my view. But, but if people are looking for someone who will discriminate against gays or will in any way try and suggest that people that have different sexual orientation don't have full rights in this country, they won't find that in me.

When you look at the homosexual agenda, I cannot support something that I believe brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul.

You talk about the Pro-Life movement being one of the great shames of our nation. I think, if you want number two, I think - I think it's that. I think it's absolute - it's a travesty that people have forced someone who is gay to make their case that they deserve the same basic rights.

I do think homophobia in the '80s was more rampant and socially acceptable.

Gay people exist. There's nothing we can do in public policy that makes more of us exist, or less of us exist. And you guys have been arguing for a generation that public policy ought to essentially demean gay people as a way of expressing disapproval of the fact that we exist, but you don't make any less of us exist. You just are arguing in favor of more discrimination, and more discrimination doesn't make straight people's lives any better.

I think the decision that's been made with respect to allowing gays to serve openly in the military is a good one.

What people do in their own homes is their business, and you can choose to love whoever you love. That's their business. It's no different than discriminating against blacks. It's discrimination, plain and simple.

It isn't that it's questionable when you speak up for the right of people with different sexual orientation. People took some part of us and used it to discriminate against us. In our case, it was our ethnicity; it's precisely the same thing for sexual orientation. People are killed because they're gay.

You know, the same percentage of people are gay and lesbian as are left-handed. Let's try to figure that out. How can it be that a left-handed person can get married to another left-handed person. Left-handed people can do anything they want. . . . I say, give homosexuals the same rights we give left-handed people.