Vice President Joe Biden said he’s comfortable with same-sex couples having the same rights as heterosexual couples, Fox News is reporting. During an appearance on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ the vice president said he’s “absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and…men and women marrying are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties”
While Biden’s statement goes beyond what President Barack Obama has publicly said on the issue, the vice president stressed that the president sets the policy. Obama’s campaign claimed that Biden was merely echoing the president’s position, but his language was stronger than Obama’s statements.
Biden added that social culture is changing, pointing to the success of NBC’s sitcom ‘Will & Grace.’ “I think ‘Will & Grace’ probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody’s ever done so far,” Biden said.
Obama has supported the gay-rights community by pushing to overturn the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that banned gays from serving openly in the military. His administration also stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage between a man and woman.
One of Biden’s spokespeople released an email saying that the vice president was saying what Obama has said previously. He thinks “committed and loving same-sex couples deserve the same rights and protections enjoyed by all Americans.”
Written by: Karen Benardello
