I'll never understand the fascination and respect that many gays give the Clintons. I recall when Bill was in office a friend of mine was swooning over the president and I asked him to explain to me why. "He says our name," he gushed. Meaning, that Clinton wasn't afraid of being seen with "professed homosexuals" to use Huckabee's term. Ironically, that same week my friend and I had that conversation, Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act. And that's the problem with Clinton(s) -- symbolically supportive yet not willing to take a true stand and enact real positive change for gay Americans. I acknowledge the symbolic support, it frustrates me that Clinton's adoring gay fans can't see the flip side.
Which brings us to Hillary. As with the husband, so with the wife.
A commenter remarked that Hillary was better than Obama on gay rights. In point of fact, that's simply not true, especially on the subject of marriage.
Obama was opposed to DOMA when it past and favors its full repeal now. Hillary was for DOMA and favors only a half repeal. Obama would support legislation giving gays in civil unions the nearly 1,200 rights and privileges under federal law now enjoyed by married couples. Hillary is more vague.
John Edwards has also recently come out for full repeal of DOMA.
Thus, Hillary is the candidate farthest to the right on gay marriage among the top three Democratic contenders.
So for true, positive change on gay rights, my money, literally and figuratively, is on Obama.
5 comments:
Thank you for the interesting tidbits of info, including the number of rights we would enjoy. But a question I have is do we really want to rely on the President to make the change for us, or our representatives and senators?
But Obama also embraced that homophobic twit Donnie McClurkin in South Carolina. That action, and the fact that he steadfastly refused to do anything about it even in the face of considerable outrage from the gay community when it became apparent that, no, he wasn't going to be able to keep that one under his hat, makes me question whether Obama's words on DOMA mean squat. Doubly so since he's already broken one promise to me (the one he made to all Illinois voters on at least two separate occasions that he wouldn't run for another office before finishing at least one full term in the Senate).
Obama's off my list.
I think the Clinton's track record on going back on their word far outstrips Obamas.
I was upset about the McClurkin thing too but in the end does it really matter? That whole flap was the politics of symbolism and doesn't really mean much if Obama will support REAL legislation and change that will benefit the gay community, which I believe he does. He at least has been consistent in his opposition to DOMA.
I don't care for Hillary any more than I care for Obama, though for different reasons.
Well, at least we can agree on that.
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