My fellow Americans, if there is anyone out there who still doubts that it was possible for me to end my long evolution from my naïve days as a state senator supporting gay marriage, to going back into the closet to serve as your president, and up to the present day, tonight is your answer. It's the answer told by my decision to take the Citizens United case one step further and allow corporations to marry anyone they like, just like the American citizens they are. Now any American can marry anyone they like, except for the gays, but, like, gross. This is your evolution!
The speech will start out by pandering to the gays, the not-gays, the disabled, the not-disabled, the minorities, the not-minorities, the people who I can comfortably label, and the people I can't comfortably label but can comfortably sit down to dinner with. But by the end, you'll all be upset by my carefully considered bland hypocrisy.
This evolution exists thanks to the people sitting at home with a microwaveable dinner and popping in the sort of DVD that can unite Americans from all walks of life by portraying gender stereotypes in a way that makes us all cringe. This is your evolution
To paraphrase a great American, the late Bobby Kennedy: “Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say, why not string you along under the pretense of waiting for a politically opportune moment while your long-term partner dies in a hospital bed you are not allowed to sit by?”
Earlier today I received a most gracious call from my opponent, Mitt Romney, congratulating me on selling out. I have thought long and hardly about this evolution, but Governor Romney has thought about it longer and more seldom than me. “Corporations are people, my friends,” he says. Tonight, I am here to prove him right. In addition to forming my own SuperPAC, I am happy to announce a new horizon in American family values: the corporate right to marry. I congratulate Romney on his achievements in service of corporations and in knowing how tall trees are.
But after talking about all this gay stuff, I would like to assure you that your president is uber-straight by telling you about my white bread family and the puppy, too. Those heterosexual norms rock. I got mine. Now, you can got yours, too, as long as you're publicly traded. This is your evolution. It belongs to you.
Never mind an environmental record that's nearly as bad as George Bush's. Never mind those illegal wars I took a lot longer than promised to get America out of... sort of. Never mind that in this economy, a college graduate will be lucky to work bagging groceries. Tonight, this victory is yours.
Never mind that my Attorney General's take on “due process” is a real John Ashcroft-quality move or that I've also evolved from calling Guantanamo unconstitutional to using it as a model for taking away Americans' right to a trial. Tonight, we inaugurate a new spirit of sacrifice – of giving up your daughters for Exxon-Mobile. As a father, using the slut word makes me uncomfortable. Comparing wage slavery to prostitution is so untoward that it might make people notice that I'm not only not a socialist but well far right of the pope. I don't like to hear our daughters put down in such a way. So I'll just say this: “drill, baby, drill!” Who doesn't want their kids to marry up in the world? This is your evolution.
Let's leave behind our history of partisanship and pettiness. Let's heal those divides and promise to get things done, as long as what's getting done is good for the bottom line of a megacorp that doesn't pay taxes in the United States.
Let me tell you a story about an old lady – a lesbian – a story about her heartache and her hope. She has lived through wars and gas shortages, being ostracized by her peers and her family, public health crises and crises of public conscience... also gas shortages. Those must have really hurt. At a time when young boys and girls are taking their own lives in despair and isolation: yes we can! At a time when lesbians' voices were silenced... you know what, I got nothing. Yes we can!
She was there to witness a generation rise to greatness, a generation that didn't give a shit about her. Yes we can! A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by the American telcos. And in the last election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because she believed I would do something about heterosexual privilege. Man, what a sucker. Yes we can!
This is our chance to answer the call to progress. This is our moment. This is our time to end discrimination against corporations and allow them to fulfill their dreams of marriage. Remember: this is your evolution. You deserve it.
Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.
