Ed Garren’s Weblog

This link will take you to the transcript of President Barack Obama’s speech to the Human Rights Campaign annual dinner in DC this past weekend.  Below the transcript are three You Tube links to the speech (in three parts).

http://www.inewscatcher.com/2009/10/obama-hrc-gay-rights-speech-video-text.html

This is worth the time to read, but preferably watch.  This historical event, the first time a sitting president has ever addressed a Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgendered (specific) audience, and the significance of that cannot be diminished.  The size of the crowd is significant as well.  If you are accustomed to thinking of GLBTQ persons in terms of a handful of people, the sheer numbers of people at this event are notable.

“That’s the story of America: of ordinary citizens organizing, agitating and advocating for change; of hope stronger than hate; of love more powerful than any insult or injury; of Americans fighting to build for themselves and their families a nation in which no one is a second-class citizen, in which no one is denied their basic rights, in which all of us are free to live and love as we see fit. ”    

(President Barack Obama in his speech to HRC)

We in the GLBTQ community (and our friends) are being given an opportunity.  The opportunity is to stretch beyond the status quo, to demand our fair share, to refuse to continue to let the painful past define our future, to expect and demand our full share of the American Dream.  But that will only happen if we claim the opportunity, and stop cooperating with our oppression by remaining silent in the face of it, by making excuses for the status quo, and by continuing to wait for someone else to do the work, or raise voice in protest.  It is OUR time, and we must claim it.

“A slave is one who waits for someone else to come and set him free”  Ezra Pound

Regards,  Ed Garren, MA, LMFT

If only we could pass on wisdom as effectively as we pass on pathology.

The biggest challenge for a person or a society is to move from where we are,

to where we have never been.

ed@edgarren.uswww.edgarren.us