Bill Clton says anti-gay marriage law he signed should be overturned | Rters

Contents:

• REMEMBER WHEN HILLARY CLTON WAS AGAST GAY MARRIAGE?
• HILLARY CLTON'S GAY-MARRIAGE PROBLEM
• TIMELE: BILL CLTON’S EVOLUTN ON GAY RIGHTS
• GAY MARRIAGE
• HIGH-PROFILE POLICIANS WHO CHANGED THEIR POSNS ON GAY MARRIAGE
• BILL CLTON SAYS ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW HE SIGNED SHOULD BE OVERTURNED
• HILLARY CLTON'S VIEWS EVOLVE ON GAY MARRIAGE, JT TIME FOR PRINTIAL MPAIGN
• BILL CLTON COM OUT SUPPORT OF GAY MARRIAGE

REMEMBER WHEN HILLARY CLTON WAS AGAST GAY MARRIAGE?

So ’s fair to say that Hillary Clton has had a longstandg opposn to gay marriage—eher that, or she was too aaid to speak tthfully about her nvictns for polil reasons, which is really jt as bad. But I also believe that people mted gay marriag, as they believe them to be, should be given rights unr the law that regnize and rpect their relatnship.

October 2006: Clton told a group of gay elected officials that she would support same-sex marriage New York if a future ernor and Legislature chose to enact such a law. Augt 2007: In a Democratic primary bate sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign and LOGO Network (a gay-oriented TV statn) Clton was asked "What is at the heart of your opposn to same-sex marriage?

HILLARY CLTON'S GAY-MARRIAGE PROBLEM

On May 23, 1996, as DOMA began s rapid journey through Congrs, the New York Tim reported:Gee Stephanopoulos, a senr Printial adviser who has overseen the issue, said: “It’s wrong for people to e this issue to monize gays and lbians and ’s pretty clear that that was the tent tryg to create a buzz on this issue. My advice to the people who arranged for the thgs was to get done and out of the way as quickly as possible; he signed late at night one eveng after returng om a day-long mpaign Defense of Marriage Act beme law, and Print Clton was reëlected, aga wh overwhelmg support om gay Amerins. In fact, many believe that was the Bh mpaign’s very strategic placement of anti-gay-marriage state nstutnal ballot iativ throughout morate and nservative leang stat (like Oh) which brought out nservative Bh voters and rried the day for him that electn.

A DOMA veto would likely have been overridn anyway, and so even if Print Clton had been reëlected, we would still have had the Defense of Marriage his reëlectn, Print Clton beme nsirably bolr on gay-rights issu. He beme the first Print history to endorse gay-rights legislatn by announcg his support for a new feral hate-crim statute that clud sexual orientatn. He ntued, and even stepped up, appotments of openly gay Amerins to important Admistratn posns, cludg the recs appotment of Jam Hormel as the first openly gay Ambassador.

The ia of same-sex marriage was very unpopular at the time, but the prevailg legal amework of 1996 raised the prospect of marriage equaly advot wng one state, leadg gay upl om around the untry to flood to get married then mandg regnn their home state unr the "full fah and cred" clse of the Constutn. His prs secretary scribed the marriage panic as "gay bag, pure and simple, " and Clton himself snorted that the issue was "hardly a problem that is sweepg the untry.

TIMELE: BILL CLTON’S EVOLUTN ON GAY RIGHTS

The ntext was that, Soris's words, Clton "was the first ndidate for natnal office to seek and receive support om an anized gay polil muny, which was self new to printial polics. " He had posned himself as the gay-iendly ndidate 1992 and tend to do so aga 1996, and throughout his princy he advoted for many measur — rangg om employment discrimatn laws to the appotment of openly gay people to posns of thory the ernment — that were important to the anized gay muny.

In the same op-ed, he ma reference to an amic brief filed the DOMA legislatn that argued that "many supporters of the bill known as DOMA believed that s passage 'would fe a movement to enact a nstutnal amendment banng gay marriage, which would have end the bate for a generatn or more. And 2009, Bill Clton straightforwardly reunted, "We were attemptg at the time, a very reactnary Congrs, to head off an attempt to send a nstutnal amendment banng gay marriage to the stat.

GAY MARRIAGE

Sam Ste and Jennifer Benry approached this om a human angle and asked the people who led gay rights groups the 1990s, who said the nstutnal amendment angle never me up. Hillary Clton didn't rea om supportg same-sex marriage for polil reasons—before last year, she earntly believed that marriage equaly should be nied to gays and lbians. * The d tensn stemmed om persistent qutng as Clton obfted on an issue that uld damage her chanc a 2016 primary but is relatively unlikely to hurt her a ntt agast a Republin, given that her aln is so much stronger on gay rights than the opposn.

Would the subset of Democrats who thought 2008 opposn to gay marriage should prevent a man om beg CEO 2013 really support the 2015 printial mpaign of a woman who openly opposed gay marriage until last year?

Dog so would seem to show nsistency, yet there's a strong argument to be ma that Clton's anti-gay-marriage past shouldn't drive cisns to support or oppose her. There is also rentment om gays who feel that the Cltons wronged them the Sullivan's perspective is stctive:She was the send most powerful person an admistratn a cril era for gay rights.

HIGH-PROFILE POLICIANS WHO CHANGED THEIR POSNS ON GAY MARRIAGE

Clton also left gay service-members the lurch, doublg the rate of their discharg om the ary, and signed DOMA, the high watermark of anti-gay legislatn Amerin history. I was edor of TNR for five years of the Cltons, aggrsively wrg and publishg articl favor of marriage equaly and ary service, and saw the Cltons’ irratn wh and hostily to gay activists up close.

Fally, there is wispread amnia among Democrats more broadly, who reflexively assume that Hillary Clton has of urse supported gay marriage her heart of hearts for years. "So what's like when you're office and you have to do all the polil lculatns to not be able to support somethg like gay marriage that you actually believe ?

BILL CLTON SAYS ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW HE SIGNED SHOULD BE OVERTURNED

In liberal circl, now seems impossible to have red eply about human rights, to have red about gay rights, and to have objected to gay marriage, even though that was the exact posn of almost all liberals very recently.

HILLARY CLTON'S VIEWS EVOLVE ON GAY MARRIAGE, JT TIME FOR PRINTIAL MPAIGN

Those who only joed the ph for gay marriage 2013 after spendg years fendg DOMA were, que obvly, "ls mted" to gay equaly than those who spent years or s urgg marriage equaly.

BILL CLTON COM OUT SUPPORT OF GAY MARRIAGE

GROSS: You know, I'm sayg, I'm sorry, I jt want to clarify what I was sayg, I was sayg that you maybe really believed this all along, you know, believed gay marriage all along, but felt for polil reasons Ameri wasn't ready yet and you uldn't say .