It's time to recognize that under the equal protection clause of the United States [Constitution], same-sex couples should have the same rights as anybody else.

Those are the ladies sitting in church. And in the same way that they might feel a joy and release on Sunday, they are still going to work on Monday. And that's who I was listening to during this process. And if at the end of my presidency they feel like I did a pretty good job, then I'll feel pretty good.

To anyone out there who has ever been assaulted: You will never be alone. You are never alone. We have your back. I've got your back.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

And that, I suppose, is what I'd been trying to tell my mother that day: that her faith in justice and rationality was misplaced, that we couldn't overcome after all, that all the education and good intentions in the world couldn't help you plug up the holes in the universe or give you the power to change its blind, mindless course.

State visits are often an opportunity for the United States to reaffirm our ties and friendship with our closest partners around the world.

I think that whenever you have got an incoming president of the other side it takes a while for people to reconcile themselves with that new reality.