I think that the issues we have with science these days are not restricted to what's happening with respect to religion. There are a lot of very religious scientists around.

America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

When you've got little kids, and you're tucking them in. When you open a door and they're in their pajamas and they're, you know, wrestling with you and asking you, you know, to read to them and stuff, [The white House] starts feeling like home pretty quick. Not to mention having a mother-in-law upstairs, and the dog, and now two.

Assault weapons ban reintroduced.

I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act. This was discrimination enshrined in law. It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people. The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it. We are a people who declared that we are all created equal - and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

I do think that when you go into red states, they're - so-called red states - I think they're troubled with certain excesses with respect to the Patriot Act, but they're also concerned with making sure we're secure against terrorism.

If there's a senior citizen in downstate Illinois that's struggling to pay for their medicine and having to chose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer even if it's not my grandparent.