Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that the gay community freed “decent straight people” from being intimidated to speak out against homophobia at a progressive political convention.

“They freed us,” he said. “It used to be that the vast majority of the American people who were not at all homophobic felt intimidated if they spoke up, felt intimidated if they were in a circumstance where someone made fun of, or was demeaning to, someone who was part of the [gay] community… so many decent straight people who were just as afraid to speak out now have been given their voice by the gay community.”

Biden was keynoting the major progressive convention Netroots Nation, which bills itself as “a giant family reunion for the left.”

He repeatedly thanked the audience of activists and bloggers, crowing that no longer are people called “socialists” for asserting that healthcare is a basic human right, not a privilege. “You made that happen!” he congratulated them.

He also touted what he considers economic triumphs of the progressive agenda, saying, “We literally saved this country from moving from a great recession into a depression.”

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