Michelle Obama Confronts Gay Rights Heckler During Speech [Video]

Don’t mess with the Obamas when they’re in the middle of a speech.

Just a few weeks after President Obama had to confront a Code Pink anti-war protester during a national security speech, wife Michelle had her own heckler to contend with at a Democratic fundraiser in Washington.

A gay-rights protester interrupted the first lady’s speech on Tuesday, causing Michelle to offer her the microphone and leave. The crowd cheered for the first lady to remain, so she did.

She was about 12 minutes into her 20-minute speech when a woman standing at the front of the small crowd interrupted her, demanding that President Obama take the gay rights issue into his own hands and sign an executive order making gay marriage legal across the country.

“One of the things I don’t do well is this,” the first lady rebuffed, walking down from the lectern and confronting the protester head on.

Obama then presented the heckler with a choice: Either she could “listen to me or you can take the mic, but I’m leaving,” then turning to the crowd and saying, “You all decide. You have one choice.”

The crowd began cheering and chanting for Obama to stay, and one woman told the gay-rights protester “You need to leave.”

As the protester was escorted out, she shouted that she was a “lesbian looking for federal equality before I die.”

Obama returned to the stage to finish her speech, earning loud applause from the audience gathered.

The first lady’s heckler was later identified by The Washington Post as Ellen Sturtz, an activist with GetEQUAL, a group which campaigns for lesbian and gay rights. Sturtz said that she was stunned by the first lady’s reaction to her.

“She came right down in my face,” she said. “I was taken aback.”