Biden’s “Words Speak for Themselves” on His “Belief in Marriage Equality,” Incoming HRC Head Griffin Says
Speaking with Metro Weekly just now, Chad Griffin — the founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights who is due to become the president of the Human Rights Campaign on June 12 — is praising Vice President Joseph Biden’s comments about what Griffin is calling Biden’s “belief in marriage equality” today.
What’s more, Griffin is dismissing attempts by the administration to claim that the comments mean otherwise.
“Is there even a question?” he says.
Agreeing with Metro Weekly‘s analysis of the comments, Griffin said, “Only in Washington and in politics could someone attempt to parse the words of what the vice president of the United States said on Meet the Press today.”
Griffin explains: “His words speak for themselves — and they send an incredibly important message outside Washington to the young LGBT teenager hearing the vice president of the United States talk about his belief in marriage equality and the fact that he or she can grow up and have the same dreams and aspirations as their friends, their colleagues, their parents.
Griffin, who is a member of the Obama for America finance team and recently attended a re-election campaign fundraiser in Los Angeles at which Biden was the guest, said of today’s Meet the Press interview, “When I watched that and saw that, I had the grandest smile of pride on my face — and it had nothing to do with politics. It had to do with what message that sends to real live people across this country who day in and day out, they are directly and intentionally discriminated against by their government. That, to me, is the importance and the power of what came from the vice president’s mouth today.”
Looking at the responses from the administration since the interview, which Metro Weekly described as a look “through the Obama administration’s marriage equality looking-glass,” Griffin was likewise incredulous.
“His words can speak for themselves,” Griffin says. “I don’t think anyone in America — or, I should say, I don’t think anyone outside Washington — would have any question what the vice president was saying.”
[Photo: Griffin (Photo by Rex Wockner.)]
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