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President Joe Biden will sign the Respect for Marriage Act Tuesday, codifying protections for same-sex marriage and interracial marriage into law.
It's been ten years since one of then-Vice President Biden's most memorable appearances on Meet the Press, one in which he publicly declare his personal support of same-sex marriage for the first time — even as his boss, President Barack Obama, remained opposed to at the time.
"Look, I just think that the good news is that as more and more Americans come to understand what this is all about is a simple proposition: who do you love? Who do you love? And will you be loyal to the person you love?" Biden said to then-host of Meet the Press, David Gregory.
Biden added, "And that's what people are finding out is what all marriages at their root are about, whether they're marriages of lesbians or gay men or heterosexuals."
“I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men and women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying men and women are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties and, quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that,” Biden said in the 2012 interview.
Prior to his comments, Biden had long been on the record opposing a guarantee to give same-sex couple the full status of marriage, but he is expected to remind voters about the Meet the Press interview when he signs the Respect for Marriage bill Tuesday.
Just three days later, President Obama publicly announced his support for gay marriage in an interview with ABC News. And just three years later, Biden and Obama celebrated the Supreme Court's decision to make same-sex marriage legal in all states with the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.
