The Tale of the Tape: Hillary Clinton's Gay Marriage Evolution
The Tale of the Tape: Hillary Clinton's Gay Marriage Evolution
Andrea Bernstein
WNYC
This dispute over the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act is Hillary vs. Bernie in a nutshell. Is it better to go all in, at every moment in history, or is it better to pull your punches sometimes, for a larger good? Can you trust Hillary Clinton to do what she believes, or will she only do what is politically expedient?
I lived through the actual debate on the Defense of Marriage Act, the one in Congress, where the proponents spent months loudly warning of the dangers of pedophilia, incest, and other abuses they thought gay marriage would usher in. It was a particularly painful time — I was a reporter at the New York Observer covering the 1996 campaign, and an out lesbian. I remembered the whole episode as a nasty punch in the gut. The bill passed both houses with gigantic margins.
But Clinton signed the bill. "It was a difficult day," Clinton's openly gay White House adviser, Richard Socarides, told me. "But there’s a lot at stake in a presidential election. It was not a tough choice: do you want the guy who is signing this reluctantly because he feels he has to protect his political flank, or do you want to, by your inaction, help elect the person who’s proposing it?"
"He signed it," Clinton agreed. "But he signed it because it was something the Congress said, 'Take it or leave it. You’re going to have to do it.' They would have passed it over his veto."
Listening back to that tape — recorded on a long-gone cassette recorder — it's hard to believe how many questions Clinton took on the issue, until she eventually cried uncle. "I would have voted for it at that time but I think to go back and talk about DOMA now especially...is something that is divisive."
So then, why was she against gay marriage?
Here's the part of her answer that later became famous. "Because I believe marriage means something different. Marriage is about a historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been between a man and a woman."
It's very clear that President Clinton signed DOMA for political expediency. I still don't understand the necessity to rewrite history on this.
Related:
There’s No Evidence In Clinton White House Documents For Clintons’ Story On Anti-Gay Law
Hillary needs to stop with her bul**hit about DOMA
Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Defense of Marriage Act, explained
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