Tim Cook Acceptance Speech for National Visibility Award from HRC (Video)

Apple CEO Tim Cook received the National Visibility Award from Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT civil rights advocacy group. Mr. Cook took the award seriously enough to accept it in person, and HRC posted his acceptance speech to YouTube. He spoke about coming out, and the importance of fighting for basic human rights and human dignity for everyone, "regardless of their race, creed, gender, or sexual orientation."

From the speech:

People need to hear that being gay is not a limitation. People need to hear that being gay doesn't restrict your options in life. People need to hear that you can be gay or transgender and be good at whatever else you want to in life. A CEO, or a senator. An Olympic athlete, an award-winning actor or actress. An amazing husband, wife, father, mother. I thought that was a message worth sharing.

Mr. Cook delivered a passionate speech. Little of it had anything to do with technology or Apple, but he made the case that discrimination holds all of us back. This is consistent with Apple's commitment to the idea, "Inclusion inspires innovation."

He was explicitly stated that the fight for human rights neither began nor ends with the LGBT community.

[Being gay] has given me through my life experience tremendous insight and empathy for the struggles of other group marching for equality. Because goodness knows the LGBT community is not the only one facing inequalities at work, or at school, or in renting an apartment, or adopting a child.

The way I look at this is simple: discrimination against anyone hold everyone back. Everyone.

In a word, Mr. Cook, word.

The speech in full: