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Gays celebrate president's inauguration at ballBy Ivan Couronne, AFP WASHINGTON, United States -- At a ball organized Monday by the leading gay rights association in honor of Barack Obama, the guests still shuddered when they repeated the five words pronounced by the president earlier in the day: “Our gay brothers and sisters.”
January 23, 2013, 4:12 pm TWN Just a year ago, Obama had not yet taken a position in favor of gay marriage. He was “evolving” on the issue, he said. It was only in May 2012 that he officially finished evolving and said publicly that people of the same sex should be able to marry. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the most powerful of gay rights groups, late Monday invited people to celebrate the inauguration of the president, who himself showed up at only two balls held in other parts of the city. At the ballroom of the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel in Washington, Democrat Cory Booker, the popular mayor of Newark, New Jersey, was ecstatic. “We have a lot to party about tonight!” he declared in front of several hundred tuxedo-clad guests, each of whom paid $350 for the ticket. “I stood there and watched my president, a true fully evolved man now,” continued Booker. “Stand up to end 'Don't Ask Don't Tell,' stand up to embrace marriage equality, stand up to say the truth of our people that no matter who you are, your color, your creed, your race, your religion, who you choose to love, you are an American and part of the United States.
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