May 17, 2017
Josh Edelson/AP
Joe Biden gives a speech at the HRC Los Angeles Gala on Saturday, March 22, 2014.
Former Vice President Joe Biden is calling for progress in the fight for equality for not just the nation's LGBT community, but for those around the world.
Biden penned an impassioned op-ed for The Washington Post on Tuesday and noted that while the U.S. has seen "tremendous progress" in protecting LGBTQ people, there is still much work to be done.
"Progress doesn’t happen by chance. It happens because good people come together and demand change," he wrote. "And any person of conscience, regardless of their religious or partisan beliefs, should be able to agree: Violence against any person, in any form, is intolerable. No one should be killed, tortured, assaulted or harassed because of who they are."
Biden pointed to countries like Syria and Russia, where he says people have a "responsibility ... to speak out" against anti-LGBT hate.
"Governments, including ours, can wield the levers of diplomacy, defense and foreign aid to promote and protect the human rights of all people," he wrote.
Biden has had his fair share of visits across the country recently to discuss how to end sexual assault on college campuses. He's preached a similar message – that everyone has an obligation to help.
Though widely speculated, Biden has said that he is not planning to run in the Democratic primaries for the 2020 presidential election.
Since his White House departure, Biden has been named the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he'll lead the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.
Biden will be based in Washington, D.C. but will have an office on the University City campus.
Read Biden's full op-ed in The Washington Post here.
