This is real. This is about basic, fundamental rights. It's about laying a foundation of equality for everybody, and he missed a golden opportunity to stand on history and to do something that is noble and appropriate. By no means was this a profile in courage. What a wasted moment for his administration.

Separate inherently is not equal. There's a reason why $45 million was spent against marriage equality. It's because people understand the word does have meaning. And equality comes when we accept the same notions and the same institutions for everyone, regardless of race and gender and regardless of sex orientation.

If, in this country, a simple majority of people can start stripping away the rights of a protected class in the minority, that's a pretty alarming thing.

Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.

San Francisco has long been a leader in the arts, nurturing generations of painters, sculptors, poets, novelists, playwrights, film-makers, and performing artists and innovators of every kind.

We must continue to step in and stand up to resist reckless rhetoric and actions in a peaceful and forceful manner.