In 2009, Philip Spooner, an 86 year old WWII vet and a lifelong Republican was filmed speaking movingly about why he fought at Omaha Beach on June 6th, 1944, in one of the most brutal battles of WW II. Spooner spoke movingly about why, and how, he fought for the right to be different and be equal.

As Spooner says in the original video in which he testifies before the Maine Senate at a hearing about the Maine Marriage Equality Bill:

I am here today because of a conversation I had last June when I was voting. A woman . . . asked me, "Do you believe in equality for gay and lesbian people?" I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her, "What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?"

For freedom and equality. These are the values that make America a great nation, one worth dying for.

My wife and I did not raise four sons with the idea that our gay son would be left out. We raised them all to be hard-working, proud and loyal Americans. And they all did good.

Melissa Dunphy, a Philadelphia-based composer, created a choral work as the winning entry for the 2010 Simon Carrington Chamber Singers Composition Competition. She used Spooner's public testimony as the text of her composition, embedded below.