And just as the false assumption that we are not connected to the earth has led to the ecological crisis, so to the equally false assumption that we arenot connected to each other that has led to our social crisis.

There's lots about politics I don't feel comfortable with. To talk about the politics of future ideas is impossible in soundbite form.

I strongly believe in the separation of church and state. But freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion, there is a better way.

Our way of life is at stake, our grandchildren are at stake, the future of civilization is at stake.

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 All of these movements have one thing in common: the opposition to progress was rooted in an outdated understanding of morality.

Believe in the power of your own voice. The more noise you make, the more accountability you demand from your leaders, the more our world will change for the better.

A leapord never changes his stripes.