I Pledge To You Today That As

The Gay Rights Movement Of Recent Years Has Been An Inspiring Victory For Humanity And It Is In The Tradition Of The Civil Rights Movement When I Was A Young Boy In The South, The Women's Suffrage Movement When My Mother Was A Young Woman In Tennessee, The Abolition Movement Much Farther Back, And The Anti-apartheid Movement When I Was In The House Of Representatives. All Of These Movements Have One Thing In Common: The Opposition To Progress Was Rooted In An Outdated Understanding Of Morality.

I’ve Chosen Not To Challenge The Rule Of Law, Because In Our System There Really Is No Intermediate Step Between A Supreme Court Decision And Violent Revolution. When The Supreme Court Makes A Decision, No Matter How Strongly One Disagrees With It, One Faces A Choice –are We, In John Adams’ Phrase, A Nation Of Laws, Or Is It A Contest Made On Raw Power?

It Should Be Lifted Above Partisanship Because It's A Question Of Survival. It's A Moral Issue.

We The Human Species, Are Confronting A Planetary Emergency-a Threat To The Survival Of Our Civilization That Is Gathering Ominous And Destructive Potential...the Earth Has A Fever. And The Fever Is Rising...indeed, Without Realizing It, We Have Begun To Wage War On Earth Itself.

I Used To Have A Military Officer Travelling With Me At All Times With A Suitcase - Referred To As The Nuclear Football - In Case It Had To Be Used.