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Hillary for president
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Race
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| Contributor | COSDem |
| Last Edited | COSDem Dec 22, 2007 05:00pm |
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| Category | Endorsement |
| Media | Newspaper - Washington Blade |
| News Date | Friday, December 21, 2007 10:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | ANY GAY VOTERS, this one included, are reluctant to trust Bill and Hillary Clinton’s promises on our issues after the euphoria of 1993 turned into the crushing disappointments of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act.
After courting the gay vote back then, Bill Clinton embraced a disastrous policy that has led to the expulsion of 12,000 service members at a time when the military needs all the help it can get. The U.S. military is kicking out brave, competent service members, including dozens of desperately needed Arabic-speaking linguists, solely because they are gay. The military’s gay ban amounts to un-American overt discrimination — a fact apparent to any rational, fair-minded person.
Bill’s transgressions didn’t end there. He signed DOMA and cynically bragged about it in ads that aired on Christian radio stations during his 1996 re-election campaign. More recently, he reportedly urged Sen. John Kerry to support state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage during the 2004 race.
Publicly, we are told that this is not Bill’s campaign for a third term; rather it’s Hillary’s opportunity to shine on her own. But no one is that naïve. Make no mistake that voters will again get a two-fer if Hillary wins.
Despite this complicated history, Hillary Clinton, and most of her Democratic rivals, deserve much credit for evolving quickly on gay rights issues. Just four years ago, Kerry endorsed same-sex marriage bans. Today, all the Democratic candidates have backed some form of relationship recognition for gay couples. Former Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Bill Richardson favor repealing all of DOMA, while Clinton has taken the more cautious approach of advocating a repeal only of Section 3, which defines marriage under federal law as a union only between a man and woman. That section prevents same-sex couples who are married or have entered into civil unions from accessing the many federal bene |
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