09/21/2007
Hillary Clinton Talks Lesbian Rumors, DADT, Civil Unions, ENDA
The Advocate's interview with Hillary Clinton in which she discusses both the lesbian rumors and her position on civil unions vs same sex marriage is now online.
Another excerpt:
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As any good therapist would say, no partner is perfect. At least Clinton’s willing to try. "I cannot promise results," she says to me. "I can only promise my best effort. I can only promise to do everything that I can do to make the case, to put together the political majority, to take the message to the country, and I will do that. But there are no guarantees in life or politics."
So, I say to her, even if the negative feedback is deafening, would you still push forward on repealing "don’t ask, don’t tell"? "I’m certainly going to continue to push forward," she says. "But again, I can’t guarantee that the negative feedback will go away. The president is not a king, despite George Bush’s efforts to be one…and don’t forget, there’s another set of agenda items too. We’ve got ENDA and hate crimes."
"If they reached your desk,' I press, 'you’d promise to sign them?"
"Absolutely, because as president I would be trying to get them to my desk," she says with an exasperated laugh. "That’s the whole point!"
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The Object of Our Affection [the advocate]
Posted 5:19 PM EST by Andy Towle in Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Election 2008, Gay Marriage, Hillary Clinton, News | Permalink
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I think Hillary Clinton answered these questions based on what she thinks voters want to hear, and not her real convictions.
Posted by: Sheldon | Sep 21, 2007 5:32:32 PM
LOL, Sheldon, I think that's somewhere in the definition of politician.
:)
Posted by: rich | Sep 21, 2007 5:36:23 PM
She looks terrific. What a beautiful cover. You go Hill. Have you seen the new Genre Cover?
Posted by: GraceT | Sep 21, 2007 5:40:24 PM
Maybe I should have been thrilled by the HRC forum for the Democratic candidates. Thrilled that it even happened. Instead, weeks later, I'm left feeling disenfranchised. There's *no one* that speaks for me that can be elected. I have no America.
Posted by: adamblast | Sep 21, 2007 6:02:02 PM
I agree that she looks amazing on the cover. Leave it to the gays. And air brushes.
Posted by: Paul | Sep 21, 2007 6:34:59 PM
Neither do I, Adamblast. In all 60 of my years I have never had an America. Welcome to the REAL Gay World.
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Sep 21, 2007 6:47:55 PM
jebus h. cripes, 60 yrs and you havn't seen any progress? you and adamblast have no america? wtf is wrong with you? all of the dem candidates support gay rights and civil unions. would you have imagined this in the 50s, 60s, 70s? cry me a river. so most of them are not willing to fall on the sword of gay marriage to your satisfaction; welcome to the real world.
Posted by: nic | Sep 21, 2007 8:08:08 PM
Right on NIC........some of you people act like we are being lined up and shot at dawn. Even without the right to be married, we still have it 1000 times better than most gays in the world outside of certain European countries. In many countries we really ARE BEING LINED UP AND SHOT!!! Fugging grow up you whiners.
Even if you don't want to believe it, you live in the freest country on the planet, where you are free from most of the worlds problems. Do we have haters??...hell yes we do, but try living in the 40 to 50 countries where your own family will kill you for being gay to save themselves from being embarrassed when the goverment does it. Try living in a country that will arrest you, hold you without trial and then send you off to prison for 8 to 20 years just for drinking in a gay bar.
Some of you people need to wake and smell the coffee....people like us die on an almost hourly basis all around the world just for being gay....and your whineing because a Presidential candidate tells you the God damned truth. It's a good thing we can't choose the minority group we belong to, because I sure as hell wouldn't purposely join the gay heads up their asses group that you guys belong to.
Get up and walk away from your damn computors and go outside and leave your gay ghetto and find out what the REAL world is like.
Posted by: Joshua | Sep 21, 2007 9:37:57 PM
well stated, JOSHUA. you post could be applied to 9 out of 10 of the responses here this week. i'm getting the feeling that most of the responders here are typing to hear the sound of their own voices.
Posted by: my2cents | Sep 21, 2007 9:43:22 PM
Yeah yeah, the Dems are all for our rights. Now if the front runners were actually ELECTABLE, it would be lovely.
Posted by: Gregg | Sep 21, 2007 10:49:54 PM
And to those who are going to say that Hillary or Obama would beat any of the Repugs if the elections were held today - have YOU ever been polled? Because I know I haven't. I don't know anyone who has been polled. So how accurate are these polls? Remember the polls last prez election? Oh how wrong they were. Get ready to be disappointed again if you really believe that these folks can be elected. Wake up! We need real representation, not unelectable figureheads.
Posted by: Gregg | Sep 21, 2007 10:52:40 PM
Politics requires a clear head. If we actually look at the Clinton's record we’ll find it’s against equality. DOMA and DADT are antigay bills. To be fair, and damning, the Clintons’ aren’t poles apart from
And that, I believe, is the point. They’re all our opponents. Some, like Sam Brownback are enemies to the death. Some like Romney and the Clintons will court our votes one year and cynically stab us in the back the next. Why on earth should we have to choose between the rock and the hard place?
Being clear headed means we have to be alert and avoid projecting our feelings and goals onto candidates. In the hustle and bustle of getting votes, as they mug the blind and fleece the suckers, candidates will say any damn thing you want to hear. They want votes. Once they get them they change. It’s the oldest story in American politics.
And best wishes to Joshua, a misguided jingoist who wraps himself in the flag and pompously tries to stifle discussion with a disgraceful stream of redwhitandblue scandal mongering, Bushite propaganda and fear mongering. You’ve just won the J. Edgar Hoover Award for most obnoxious paytriot of the week. And the keys to the city of Jena, Lousyana, home town of Merican freedom. Yea, etc.
Posted by: Bill Perdue | Sep 21, 2007 10:56:36 PM
What has she really done to address gay issues as Senator?
There is probably no woman more prominent in American politics today nor in a safer office.
Talk is cheap.
Posted by: queendru | Sep 21, 2007 11:03:24 PM
Bill Perdue for President!
Posted by: My2Cents | Sep 22, 2007 12:07:00 AM
Oh yeah Bill....let me gag a bit. Please, enlighten us with your firey rhectoric, your inspiring labour manifesto. Please....get a life. Like your communist/socialst/labor candidates have a chance in hell of being elected to anything, anywhere.
Just name one of your saviors of the world that will get more than 1/10th of 1% of the vote in any state, county, or district, please!!
I realize you have a hard on for the Clintons(who aren't on my savior list either)and that your hoping(or your employer is hoping) to get gays to NOT vote for a candidate that could have a real effect on our lives. You accused another poster of doing just that when they suggested candidates other than the leading Dems....now you are doing the same thing. Make up your mind just who it is that offends you this week.
I'm a lifelong(granted that isn't a whole lot of time, 24 years) conservative, but I know that even though being gay isn't who I am, just a part of me, it's a part that I feel should have the same rights as anyone else in this Republic, and that isn't going to happen by voting Libertarian, or Republican or Socialist/Labour or Communist. That is only going to happen by voting for one of the Democrats running, hopefully one who will actually stand a chance of winning.
So you can spout all your 1905 Russian revolution bullshit you want.....but I believe both of knows it's all a smoke screen for your Republican bosses.
Posted by: Joshua | Sep 22, 2007 3:31:34 AM
if we want marriage. and marriage is historically associated with the church. then why do we not go to church and ask for it. rather than go somewhere else and ask them to ask the church. i'm not yelling, i'm just asking...
asking in a civil and inquisitive manner. please don't slap me - educate me.
Posted by: lazybythelake | Sep 22, 2007 8:44:02 AM
Joshua says that I’m a Republican. He’s just imitating the lies of the Russian ‘Democrats’ who said Lenin and Trotsky were ‘German spies’. I wonder if the Germans, lying face down in the ground and bleeding in 1945 thought that the Red Army of Lenin and Trotsky was created by ‘German spies.”
The FBI keeps a voluminous file on me and thousands of other Reds, but not on Democrats, Republicans or rightwing amateur Joe McCarthy’s like Joshua so if he really wants to prove that I’m a Republican he can apply under the Freedom of Information Act for their files. Be my guest.
The only thing he’ll find is my arrest record for being in demonstrations, my lifelong membership in unions and the socialist movement, and my activity in the antiwar, anti-nuke, gay and lesbian rights, and other movements. (Ask for a copy for me too, I’d like to proudly revisit my past; the arrests, those mass demonstrations, and the victories, like Vietnam where in spite of the worst paytriots like you could do, we rubbed your noses in it.)
So Joshua, now that I’ve accused you of being a halfwit junior-grade J. Edgar Hoover. I‘ve said that you can’t defend your politics so you resort to name calling to deflect us from dissecting your reactionary and pathetically paytriotic views. We have this whole election cycle to see who’s right (as opposed to rightwing) on issues, like DOMA, DADT, heath care, the illegal war in Iraq, US support for the zionist colony in Palestine, the planned attack on Iran, trade union issues, racism, misogynist attacks on women’s untrammeled right to abortion, treatment of the elderly and youth, the growth of a militant new,emphatically not conservative gay and lesbian youth movement, and etc. We’ll just have to wait and see what the verdict is. Or not. You lose on the face of it.
Posted by: Bill Perdue, RainbowRED Organization | Sep 22, 2007 11:52:57 AM
Maybe you should review your past posts to see who *resorted* to name calling.
You make my point everytime you speak, your agenda is Republican victories and you use whatever means at your disposal to make that happen, and your constant push to promote anyone but the candidates that have a chance of winning and also have a record of support for gay issues.
While no one running, except for Kucinch, has a long standing and 100% record of support for gay issues, most of the Democrats running would be better than ANY Republican or 5th party person(your supposedly great candidates aren't even in the 3rd party level) that you promote.
You profess to be a leftist, activist, but the real reactionary here is you. Promoting Liberal or Progressive candidates, as I do, is hardly reactionary or McCarthyite. If you actually understood the meanings of the terminology that you fling around the room, you would know that.
Somehow I don't think that selling tie-dyed t-shirts and hot dogs at rally's qualifies you as a longtime FBI's most wanted, nor does pseudo-intellectualism.
Posted by: Joshua | Sep 23, 2007 4:31:42 PM