Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday
helped open NetRoots Nation, the annual gathering of liberal
activists.
In introducing Biden, Arshad Hasan,
NetRoots Nation board member, credited the vice president for pushing
President Barack Obama on the issue of marriage equality.
“I give Joe Biden credit for changing
the dialogue in the White House,” Hasan said.
Obama's endorsement of marriage
equality came just days after Biden spoke up on NBC's Meet the
Press in May 2012.
(Related: Joe
Biden endorses gay marriage.)
“I want you to know, to set the
record straight, my comments on Meet the Press were not
planned,” Biden said. “I get asked a direct question, I give a
direct answer. I come out of the civil rights movement, and there's
no way in God's green Earth that I can sit there and be asked a
question about the civil rights issue of our day and remain silent.
It would have made a lie of who I am.”
Biden added that he knew the president
“fully agreed” with him. (Video of Biden's entire remarks are
embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)