Obama Berlin Speech Touts ‘Gay and Lesbian Brothers and Sisters,’ ‘Respect for Faith’

President Barack Obama made references to gay rights and immigration reform during the speech in Berlin, Germany Wednesday that was intended to focus on nuclear weapons reductions. He further demanded respect for religion at the same time his administration is being sued at home for violating religious liberty.

“When we respect the faiths practiced in our churches and synagogues, our mosques and our temples, we’re more secure,” Obama said. “When we welcome the immigrant, with his talents or her dreams, we are renewed. When we stand up for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters and treat their love and their rights equally under the law, we defend our own liberty as well. We are more free when all people can pursue their own happiness.”

The comments in Germany come at a time when the Obama administration Department of Health and Human Services is defending its mandate that all insurance cover the cost of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception in lawsuits from numerous Catholic dioceses across the country, religious schools, hospitals and other institutions, as well as privately owned businesses.

The comments also come as Obama and his Justice Department have been supportive of same-sex marriage, an issue the Supreme Court is expected to rule on shortly.

Also, the Senate is currently debating legislation backed by the Obama administration to provide legal status to at least 11 million illegal aliens.

“When Europe and America lead with our hopes instead of our fears, we do things that no other nations can do, no other nations will do,” Obama said. “So we have to lift up our eyes today and consider the day of peace with justice that our generation wants for this world. I suggest that peace with justice starts with the example we set here at home.”

“We know from our own histories that intolerance breeds injustice, whether it’s based on race or religion, gender or sexual orientation, that we are stronger when all our people, no matter who they are or what they look like are granted opportunity and when our wives and our daughters have the same opportunities as our husbands and our sons,” Obama continued.  CNS