I read in the news this week that a recent poll of college freshmen shows the majority of these students support the right of gays and lesbians to marry.

Fifty-eight percent of the 281,064 freshmen entering 421 four-year colleges and universities said that gay couples should have the right to legal marital status. It is a record high on the issue.

Attitudes are improving in our country with regard to same-sex marriage and equal rights for lesbians and gay men. Unfortunately, most of our elected officials have yet to step forward to support laws intended to eliminate all forms of discrimination against homosexuals.

Despite this disappointing record, there are leaders of our cause, all across the land, and when the history of the lesbian and gay rights movement is written, one state, Vermont, will stand out as the birthplace, and one man, Governor Howard Dean, will stand out as the father, of same-sex marriage equality.

Howard Dean didn’t set out to be the Governor who signed a landmark civil unions bill.

He set out simply to represent his state and its citizens in the same manner that he had treated them when he was a family doctor: with honesty, compassion and a commitment to what is right. He promised to listen to their concerns, to address their needs and, to tell them the truth, even when it might be unpopular.

When Vermont’s Supreme Court said something that we in this room know all too well — that gays and lesbians are routinely and illegally denied hundreds of benefits that our straight brothers and sisters are granted when they marry — Governor Dean backed the Court’s ruling. And when the Vermont state legislature wrote the nation’s first civil unions bill, the Governor’s signature was never in doubt. And when those preaching hate and intolerance tried to block the Governor from serving this, his fifth and final term, the good people of Vermont, and the national lesbian and gay community, responded forcefully and righteously, and re-elected this man of integrity as the head of the Green Mountain State.

During his tenure,

• More than 41,000 new jobs have been created
• The state’s minimum wage has been increased twice
• Health benefits have been strengthened guaranteeing coverage for virtually every child in Vermont
• Programs to help seniors afford prescription drugs have been expanded
• Thousands of acres of pristine wilderness have been protected
• Polluters have been prosecuted with some of the toughest legislation in the nation
• Governor Dean has become the first, and only, Governor in the U.S. to sign a civil unions bill giving committed gay and lesbian couples the same rights as straight married couples.

All of this … and a balanced budget!

The Governor has already announced that he will not seek a sixth term as Governor. And while I know that we, and the good people of Vermont, will miss having him in the corner office in Montpelier — something tells me that if, we are lucky — , we haven’t heard the last of this leader, a man who has consistently displayed common sense and un-common courage.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my honor to introduce our good friend, the Governor of Vermont, Howard Dean.