Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...Bill Clinton now supports marriage equality
07.14.2009 3:55pm EDT
(Washington, D.C.) Former president Bill Clinton has expressed his support for gay marriage, a stance he did not hold during his presidency. While speaking at the Campus Progress National Conference in Washington, DC, on July 8, the former president said he is “basically in support” of gay marriage.
Back in May at Toronto’s Convention Centre, Clinton said his position on same sex marriage was “evolving.” During his presidency, Clinton passed the Defense of Marriage Act which defines marriage as between one man and one woman.“I personally support people doing what they want to do,” Clinton said on July 8. “I think it’s wrong for someone to stop someone else from doing that [same-sex marriage].”
Clinton has said that he doesn’t view the issue as a federal one. When asked about the five states that have passed same sex marriage this past spring, Clinton said, “I think all these states that do it should do it.” He added again that it was not a “federal question.”
Other Democrats who have changed their positions recently about marriage equality include former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean, New York Senator Charles E. Schumer, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd.
“Bill Clinton joins other important public figures in stepping solidly into the twenty-first century in support of same-sex marriage equality,” said the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s executive director Rea Carey. “We certainly hope other elected officials, including President Obama, join him in clearly stating their support for equality in this country. Same-sex couples should not have to experience second-class citizenship.”
Read the full article at the Nation.
15 years ago was the gay marriage stone age. I don’t blame him for his stance then, or for his signature on DOMA which was veto-proof anyway. I hope he works now to undo the damage.
To little, too late. The article says: “Clinton has said that he doesn’t view the issue as a federal one.” He also says that he supports individual states, he doesn’t say that he supports it at the national level. The DOMA lives on and the Christians fight tooth and nail against every advance that we make or try to make.
Bill Who?
The was no reason for Clinton to have signed the DOMA, he could have pocket vetoed it. The little coward also did it at night, when nobody was watching.
I can see why gay people don’t have a lot of respect for Bill Clinton. I was 5 years old when he signed DOMA into law. He championed it back then and two years later he had to deal with the Monica scandal. I can see why gay people don’t have a lot of respect of him.
Gays can also thank him for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. If he had had the idea of an anti-gay constitutional amendment at teh time, he would have championed that also. I don’t believe that he has changed his mind, he is just trying to express his anti-gay bigotry in a different way.
It is all fine and nice for Bill Clinton to advocate marriage equality and ending “Don’t ask; don’t tell (just lie)” now that he is out of office. Wouldn’t it have been nice if he had taken these positions against discrimination instead of supporting and advocating the discriminatory positions when he was in power!?
I’m glad he’s evolving. Hope evolution is contagious in that marriage. Now why is he still insisting that the states have a voice? Lawrence struck down the right of the states to pass laws regarding sex between consenting adults; Loving established that Federal civil rights trump state restriction of marriage in interracial couples. Maybe someday Bill will understand that even his “evolved” perspective is still discriminatory.
Whatever you say about Bill’s policies about the GLBT community during the 90’s it was the right legislation at the right time. If he didn’t sign DOMA, we would have a federal ban on gay marriage and instead of 5 states were we can get married we would have a big fat 0. If he would not have signed DADT you would be discharged for even being percieved as gay. So while times have changed (and they have) that was the right legislation for the right time. Now that WE as a country has evolved…so does the legistlation. And it will. SO LEAVE BILL ALONE!
Could Bill Clinton be any more irrelevant? I find it very condescending that he is “basically in support” of gay marriage. Ya know Bill, I’m really not in support of you having multiple affairs. But you know what, Bill, you can legally be married.
You gave us some of the worst laws to ever face the gay community.
As has been said, too little too late.
Clinton: fraud, charlatan, who rushed back to Arkansas during his election campaign to execute the mentally incapacitated ricky ray rector.
DOMA and DADT, his work, cause misery to this day. This man did huge damage to GLBT rights, and frankly deserves egg in his face.
Too little too late; don’t give a flip anymore what he thinks about it.
How grand! And then after 2-4 term periods from now, Obama will say the same thing.
I wonder whether his position on the word “is” has evolved any.
Well, now that he is smoking dry cigars, he has ‘evolved’. Good for him. I’ll toss some confetti, and pop the champagne cork, when I see him dashing around the US working to undo all the damage that was done to our community under his watch. Talk is cheap. Walk the walk, MF.