Vice President Joe Biden hailed the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community for "freeing the soul of the American people" during his weekend visit to Provincetown, Mass.
Not surprisingly, LGBT issues were the focus of Biden's fundraising campaign speech at Pilgrim Monument and Museum in Provincetown, which is internationally known for its gay residents and vacationers, Politico reports.
"Many of you have advanced civil rights at great expense," Biden said, according to Cape Cod Times' Jason Cook. "If I had to use one adjective to describe this community it'd be courage. You have summoned the courage to speak out, to come out. We owe you." Biden also noted that the LGBT community's efforts also advanced the "civil rights of every straight American."
He called the 2012 election a race between the "starkest contrasted candidates in recent memory," before praising Obama as being "determined to change the trajectory of this country," according to the publication.
Biden's wife Jill also noted, "The road to equality is long."
Biden's Provincetown appearance is particularly significant as it makes him the first sitting vice president to set foot in Provincetown since Al Gore's 1996 visit, Forbes reports.
The vice president has been continually praised by LGBT rights advocates for speaking out in favor of marriage equality ahead of the president himself. "I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties," he said during a "Meet The Press" interview in May. "And quite frankly, I don't see much of a distinction -- beyond that."
