Text 24007, 184 rader
Skriven 2006-10-26 16:44:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Hillary
===============
http://gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17379741&BRD=2729&PAG=461&de
pt_id=568864&rfi=6

Absorbing Gay Pain & Praise, Clinton Says She's Evolved 
By: PAUL SCHINDLER 
10/26/2006

In an appearance early Wednesday evening in front of roughly three-dozen 
LGBT leaders, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton indicated that she would 
not oppose efforts by Eliot Spitzer, the odds-on favorite to become the 
new governor, to enact a same-sex marriage law in New York. 

She also suggested that language she used when she first ran for the 
Senate in 2000 explaining her opposition to marriage equality based on 
the institution's moral, religious, and traditional foundations had not 
reflected the "many long conversations" she's had since with "friends" 
and others, and that her advocacy on LGBT issues "has certainly 
evolved."

On Wednesday, Clinton presented her position on marriage equality as 
more one of pragmatism.

"I believe in full equality of benefits, nothing left out," she said. 
"From my perspective there is a greater likelihood of us getting to that 
point in civil unions or domestic partnerships and that is my very 
considered assessment."
Clinton addressed a gathering organized by the Greater Voices Coalition 
made up of LGBT Democratic organizations citywide. Leaders of those 
clubs, along with out elected officials, including Democratic district 
leaders and state committee members, City Council Speaker Christine 
Quinn, state Senator Tom Duane, and Assemblymembers Deborah Glick and 
Daniel O'Donnell, were in attendance. The meeting, which was held at the 
Upper East Side home of a Clinton supporter, ran for more than an hour.

Representatives of the gay press were invited to the meeting, which was 
on the record.

The session included both warm, enthusiastic praise for New York's 
junior Democratic senator and sharp questioning about her posture on 
marriage equality.

Quinn opened the meeting recalling a number of issues-LGBT-related and 
not-which she had worked with Clinton on in the 10 months since she's 
been the Council leader. She focused in particular on their efforts to 
strategize about the Senate Democrats' response to this summer's efforts 
by Republicans to revive a federal constitutional amendment barring same-
sex marriage beaten back in 2004.

"Every single time since I've been elected speaker, I ever time I've 
picked up the phone to ask Senator Clinton to help the LGBT community, 
she has said yes," Quinn said. "She's assigned staff, she's taken her 
own time and political capital to put in on the deal."

Ethan Geto, a long-time gay activist who described himself as an advisor 
to the senator on LGBT issues, introduced Clinton, addressing what he 
called "the elephant in the room."

"We're engaged in a dialogue with someone who has the stature, who has 
the credibility, the viability to be the party's standard bearer in 
2008," he said. "I think when you look at Senator Clinton's record, she 
may not agree with us on every last policy issue, but when you look at 
the totality of the record, there is no one in this country who may be 
the president of the United States with whom we have a warmer, a 
stronger, a closer productive working relationship."

But once the meeting moved from introductions to questions, Clinton 
faced a considerably more varied reception-and, hands down, the most 
challenging issue she faced was marriage equality.

Doug Robinson, the co-president of the Out People of Color Political 
Action Club who with his partner of more than 20 years has raised two 
sons, spoke about the pressures his family faces in sending both to 
college without the benefits of marriage's economic advantages. In what 
began as a strong challenge to Clinton, Robinson said, "We need your 
support on marriage, we need you to look at that."

Yet, just as Robinson was about to yield the floor for Clinton's 
response, he offered her a bit of wiggle room.
"Even if you say civil marriage isn't as important as equal benefits, in 
my mind I don't care what you call it," he concluded. "But I need the 
same things that everyone does so I can sustain my family."

It was at this point that the senator stated her support for "full 
equality of benefits, nothing left out," before saying that civil unions 
offered the more certain route to that goal. 

"If you go the next step and say, 'But I want what is called marriage,' 
you're going to have a problem."

Following up, Allen Roskoff, the president of the Jim Owles Liberal 
Democratic Club, worked to hold Clinton's feet to the fire. Recalling a 
conversation he had with her during her first Senate campaign, Roskoff 
said, "It was right after you said that you were against same-sex 
marriage on moral, religious, and traditional grounds and I found that 
incredibly hurtful." He also criticized the senator for volunteering her 
support for the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, even if not asked, and for 
not speaking during the Senate marriage amendment debate in June 
regardless of the work she did behind the scenes.

Clinton offered Roskoff some consolation regarding her earlier 
characterizations of marriage's history as an exclusively heterosexual 
institution, an argument that she made in an interview with this 
reporter as well during the 2000 campaign.

"Obviously my friends and people who spoke to me-we've had many long 
conversations and I think-and which I believe-that the way that I have 
spoken and I have advocated has certainly evolved and I am happy to be 
educated and to learn as much as I can," she said.

Clinton went on to defend both DOMA and her decision not to speak during 
the marriage amendment debate this past June, and in fact linked the 
two. She said that without being able to point to the U.S. law which 
bars federal recognition of gay marriage and allows states to similarly 
refuse to acknowledge such unions from other states, many more members 
of Congress would have voted to amend the Constitution, especially when 
that effort had its first vote two years ago.

She explained that her choice not to speak on the Senate floor about the 
amendment this year was strategic.
"Very few Democrats spoke, because maybe you thought one way, which is 
that you want people out there speaking for us. We thought as-force the 
Republicans out there, make them look like they're trying to enshrine 
discrimination in the Constitution. We don't even want to dignify it."

Later in the discussion, Larry Moss, who as a Democratic state 
committeeman led the charge for the state party's endorsement of 
marriage equality, raised the issue with specific reference to politics 
in Albany. Noting that Spitzer, if elected governor, plans to introduce 
a "program bill" legalizing gay marriage as a sign of his commitment to 
the issue, Moss asked, "How do we keep your words from being cover for 
conservative Democrats who want to compromise with Eliot and say, 'Just 
do civil unions?'"

Clinton's response was probably the evening's most newsworthy moment.

"My position is consistent," she said. "I support states making the 
decision. I think that Chuck Schumer would say the same thing. And if 
anyone ever tried to use our words in any way, we'll review that. 
Because I think that it should be in the political process and people 
make a decision and if our governor and our Legislature support marriage 
in New York, I'm not going to be against that... So I feel very 
comfortable with being able to refute anybody who tries to pit us or pit 
me against Eliot."

Asked several moments later by Gary Parker, the Greater Voices leader 
who chaired the meeting, to clarify that point, Clinton reiterated, "I 
am not going to speak out against, I'm not going to oppose anything that 
the governor and the Legislature do."

No other issue raised during the gathering garnered the heat that 
marriage did. Clinton spoke passionately against what she said was the 
injustice, waste, and stupidity of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell 
policy that has led to 10,000 discharges in the past 13 years, including 
some involving personnel with specialized skills such as language 
translation. The senator won praise from several at the meeting for her 
work in blocking Senate approval of a Ryan White AIDS Care Act 
reauthorization that would mean the loss of millions in federal dollars 
to New York each year.
Asked by Melissa Sklarz, a transgendered activist who is a former 
president of the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats, if she would 
support the inclusion of gender identity and expression protections in 
the long-stalled federal employment nondiscrimination act, or ENDA, 
Clinton noted that the federal hate crimes measure also lacks such 
language, but said only, "We are very aware of that and we are raising 
that."

Asked about a measure authored by West Side Democratic Congressman 
Jerrold Nadler that would allow immigrant partners of Americans to gain 
citizenship just as foreign-born married spouses can, Clinton said 
movement on that awaits a comprehensive solution to the immigration 
issue that moves beyond the current Republican emphasis on penalties and 
border fences. With a Democratic Congress, Clinton said, much more is 
possible "and I think that will be included in it."

Only at the very end of the meeting did Clinton get around to foreign 
policy, the Iraq War, and what she called the Bush administration's 
"abuse of power."

"I think they put Nixon to shame," she said, in what was an indisputable 
crowd-pleaser.


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