With Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard refusing to budge on her No Gay Marriage stance despite her Labor Party possibly reversing course at its national conference, U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton for a brief moment became the focus of the marriage equality debate while answering questions from college students in Melbourne. So how’d she answer a question about where she stands on the issue?
“I have been a strong supporter of ending discrimination, particularly focusing on hate crimes and workplace bias and the like. I have not supported same-sex marriage,” she told the student. “I have supported civil partnerships and contractual relationships, yet I am supportive of our states taking actions that they believe reflects the evolution of attitudes about this.”
Translation: She’s fine with you homos getting married if you can convince your lawmakers to permit it, and keep your fellow voters from banning it, but she’s not about to say the federal government should in any way recognize your little piece of paperwork.
And I’ve got little to no tolerance for anyone claiming she said anything more than that, or privately supports marriage equality. We have only her word to take her on, and what she just told you is that she does not believe same-sex marriage is equal to heterosexual marriage.
How about we take this to the next level?
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mconyc08
“What she just told you is that she does not believe same-sex marriage is equal to heterosexual marriage.”
EXACTLY!
reason
It is still to politically toxic, change is slow. DADT would be a good first step, and then EDNA. As a few more states pass marriage equality peoples opinions will slowly start to change.
People that believe that Hillary would some how have moved faster on GBLT rights are mistaken. Obama and Hillary were just about mirror images, the stuff they disagreed on during the campaign was a desperate attempt to put some daylight in between each other. After the election it is obvious that they are ideologically similar, they both are well aware of the limits of government and life in a rightward leaning country.
Teyshan
…and silence from all the Hilary fanboys.
Jeffree
Hillary herself has set the record straight: she has not advocated, nor will she advocate for SSM. Over the last few months I’ve heard dozens of times here & IRL how things would be different if she was Pres. At least in terms of SSM, nope, we wouldn’t be any farther along.
Teyshan has a point: where is the contingent of HC’s supporters?
Mike
She may not recognize or consider SSM equal to heterosexual marriage, but at least I know my boyfriend or husband won’t go getting blowjobs from cute twinky interns.
gomez
@reason: that’s exactly how it’s going to spin out. repeal of dadt, then enda, then incremental full marriage equality. est time of completetion: 2035-ish
WillBFair
Hillary supporter here.
Guess what. She’s a politician. Every politician who can read knows that the public support civil partnership, but they are sentimental about the word marraige. And guess what else. It is only a word.
Here in Washington State, the activist community turned those facts into total victory. We have a civil partnership law that is totally inclusive. They call it everything but marraige.
Sorry you all are oblivious to political realities and too self destructive to take advantage of opportunities when the arise.
This isn’t about Hillary or Obama. It’s about the community once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Watching the same play after thirty years has gotten so tiresome.
Cam
Well somebody that doesn’t have a real marriage of their own probably doesn’t think of marriage as sacred.
sasha
That’s ironic because I dont recognize her marraige to be valid either.
dvlaries
After enough time, friends with no courage often become indistinguishable from outright enemies.
Markie-Mark
Hillary Clinton is a bigot. Thankfully, she will never be president.
Markie-Mark
@WillBFair: Your civil partnership bill in Washington is NOT totally inclusive. The Federal Government does not recognize your right to file joint tax returns, wrt inheritance tax, wrt international relationships, wrt to health care benefits or wrt social security benefits. If you are happy with that status that’s your problem. My husband and I have been married in Massachusetts for 5 years and I’m not happy to settle with table scraps, as you apparently are. A federal judge in Massachusetts declared DoMA unconstitutional and that bigot Obama is appealing. That bigot Hillary Clinton would do exactly the same. Besides, she’s a crappy Sec. of State.
Jay
@WillBFair: Hey Will – how’re those federal benefits working for you?
Markie-Mark
@reason: I guess that doesn’t make either one of them much of a leader, does it? We have to wait until everyone in the country changes their minds and then Hillary & Obama might change their minds? Nice.
jason
Like her sleazy husband Bill – whose affairs she tolerates – Hillary Clinton is a bigot and a creep. She can go jump for all I care. We already got burnt worshipping at Bill Clinton’s altar, a man who stabbed us in the back by signing DOMA and DADT into law.
Message to Hillary Clinton: I hope you get voted out at the next election.
jason
Cam,
Exactly right. Bill and Hillary’s is a sham arrangement. I wonder how many blondes Bill Clinton is fucking behind his wife’s back these days. Is Hillary choosing to turn a blind eye? Enquiring minds wish to know.
whatever
Thank you for this. There so many Hillary dead enders on queerty who believe that Hillary supports gay marriage. She doesn’t. Her stance was and is the same as the president’s.
rainfish2000
@WillBFair:
Guess what, as far a I can ascertain same-sex marriage equality (in the form of a valid marriage license) is portable (transferable) to those states and DC (as well as even recognized in NY) who have made that bold leap into the 21st century and actually honor the precepts of the US Constitution that makes no legal distinctions between Gay American citizens and Straight American citizens.
If you are happy having the equivalent of a “colored people here” and “whites over there” style of living, then go for it. Personally, I have too much self-respect for that. I’ll never settle for any form of retrogressive mob mentality telling be that as an American citizen I am somehow less worthy of fully equality than another American citizen simply because of whom I love. If human rights and human equality has to based on a popularity poll, then this very warped American concept of it is repulsively hypocritical and utterly meaningless.
I wonder what Martin Luther King or Gandhi would have said if someone offered them something just even 1% less than a 100% full equality. You don’t sell your soul to the devil for just 99% of your human dignity simply to make yourself more “tolerable” to bigots.
As a caveat, I would say embrace your Domestic Partnerships for practical reasons, but never be satisfied with them. You may be sitting nearer to the front of the bus, but you are still in an assigned seat when everyone else has the right to choose where they wish to ride. That should never be acceptable.
PS- Hilary is as disgustingly duplicitous as Barack O’Bush.
http://rainfish2000.newsvine.com/_news/2010/01/19/3776376-we-are-married-let-no-one-put-asunder
Franco
“…what she just told you is that she does not believe same-sex marriage is equal to heterosexual marriage…”
This is not what she said, it’s what you inferred. Attempt to remain professional and don’t put words in her mouth. I’m not American, I don’t agree with her stance on gay marriage, but it sounds to me that what she is saying is leave it to the individual states to determine the evolutionary process of marriage, not people in her position. That’s what happened in Canada, provinces adopted gay marriage and the it spread throughout the country, where it is now federally recognized. Canadian marriage licences now state that marriage is between ‘spouse and spouse’ and not ‘husband and wife’. That’s how it will and is going down in the U.S. right now. At least I hope. If not, move to Canada. We’d be more than happy to have you.
WillBFair
You’re right. I missed the point about federal bennies.
But you missed the idea of going for easy victories on partenrship in the States to get straight people used to the idea while putting our real strength behind enda.
As soon as the community heard that the public supported partnership, instead of taking advantage of the change, they did a 180 on marraige. Before it had been a demonic plot to undermine gay culture. Then it was the be all and end all of our existance, and also a great way to waste time and resources on a minor issue we couldn’t win. Nice work.
But really I shouldn’t have spoken again. I’ve listened to thirty years of bull—- rationalzations for every loosing strategy the community could dream up. And it’s tiresome.
Brian Miller
I used to be favorable towards Hillary Clinton — but not anymore.
As for all the people claiming that “civil partnerships” are easier to get, etc., where are the federal equal treatment laws for civil partnerships?
Where are the “federal civil unions” that these people talk about but never implement?
These idiots cannot even repeal DADT, and you’re willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on marriage segregation? Seriously?
Brian Miller
@Franco:
That’s what happened in Canada, provinces adopted gay marriage and the it spread throughout the country, where it is now federally recognized.
No. It was mandated by provincial courts, ala Massachusetts in the USA, and then was ruled a federal right under the Constitution of Canada by the Supreme Court of Canada. To head off a constitutional crisis by some provinces threatening to use the notwithstanding clause to ignore a constitutional court ruling, Parliament then passed a marriage equality bill that applied across the dominion.
It’s not even remotely similar to what Clinton is advocating nor what you’re claiming.
Daez
@gomez: Someone is being an overall optimist. I’m 31, and I don’t believe for a moment that I will see same sex marriage legalized in my state at any point in my life time. The real reason that the federal government can not and should not get involved in the marriage business is because its not a right that they have to govern as according to the constitution. That same basis can be used to argue against DOMA. The federal government should recognize SSM from states that hold it as legal.
Franco
@Brian Miller: You’re right, I suppose I was simplifying it a little bit. What happened in Canada would be interpreted by most conservative Americans as the work of “activist judges” and I wanted to avoid that rhetoric. I have faith that gay Americans will be able to marry in the next ten years. I can’t believe that a country that claims to be a place of equality would deny its own citizens basic civil rights and use irrational interpretations of the Bible as justification. There was a time blacks and whites were forbidden from marrying. Things in America are weird, as a Canadian I find it hard to understand. I again extend the invitation to Canada.
Devonasa
I still like her despite this, because I mean lets face it how many other high ranking politicians in power at the moment have said otherwise.
I’m disappointed in her, just as I am disappointed in Obama and every other politician who thinks the same way..
We need more Nancy Pelosi’s on the democrat side, if so, so much more shit would get done.
damon459
I keep hearing about how we need to work together as a community on things like Marriage or Civil Unions or whatever you want to call it but then I read about gay’s in california who actually spent thousands of dollars to support prop 8
justincast on dudesnude.com has a profile stating he spent 18,000.00 and his family spent 500,000.00 to support prop 8 which tells me one thing “we” as a community are so f*&ked up we’re not going to get anywhere. I’m no longer just fed up with regular politics I’m fed up with the gay community as a whole. Sure there are some good and decent people under our rainbow but there are so many who are just messed up in the head from things like religion I just don’t see anything happening.
tjr101
Well this certainly flies in the face of all the Hillary fans that keep harping how she would have been better on LGBT rights than Obama.
America is so right-wing its not funny, but scary. Hillary is a politician and she will go with the polls. The polls say, “maybe civil partnerships, not SSM.”
wannabegay2
OK, she goes out and supports gay marriage and republicans gain complete control over the congress. how would this help us? its better to say NO and try to change things.
Jack
Hillary: C U Next Tuesday.
ATNNT
LOL @ Franco. You get a taste of enough of the vicious American gays and…… you’ll be trying to figure out how to send ’em back.
ewe
Doesn’t she know that cost her the election?
ewe
She should be barefoot and pregnant in a kitchen with her rationale.
ewe
@WillBFair: The political reality is that marriage is on the books and it should be changed to civil partnership for all people and marriage can be saved for religious institutions. Sorry but you are the one who does not get that and therefore you cater to bigotry. Shame on you too.
ewe
@wannabegay2: That is not changin NOTHIN. Stop supporting her. She is actively fighting against your equal rights as a citizen.
skzip888
This odd position is just pandering, like her and Lieberman trying to censor video games. If she can take on any micro-position that doesn’t endanger her core platform (what that is, i can not tell you) but manages to appease the little old Midwestern white ladies who fear anything that doesn’t come in a danish butter cookie tin.
skzip888
..she’ll do it in a heartbeat
InscrutableTed
She said she hasn’t supported same-sex marriage. Is that the same as opposing it? Or is she saying she neither supports or opposes it?
Chuck
I was very pro Hillary back in the day (2008) but you can’t rewrite history. It is no use asking ‘what if.’ Hillary will never be president because after 2012 she’ll be too old. I always liked Pelosi better anyway.
GregorVonK
One element that has not been mentioned but should be considered would be the rumors about her own sexuality. They crop up periodically, and whether she runs for Prez again or no, she no doubt fears that an all out embrace of gay marriage would be met with an, “Mmm hmm, of course. Well, we all know about HER” kind of smear campaign that could impact her career.
Not that that excuses anything, of course.
Derek
She’s a politician, she is saying what she has to say. Of the major political figures in the United States she seems the most supportive of gay rights, how then can you call her a bigot? Who are you comparing her to? I don’t see how this statement is different from anything she has said before.
(Mind you I live in Canada …but still!)
Casey
The US is not a democracy. The sooner people realise this and stop relying on lying bigotted politcians to get things the better things will get.
It is ONLY through the courts that we have ANY chance of reaching equality. With our ‘fierce advocates’ (Obama and Clinton for example) being such homophobic bigots, how can anyone expect politicians to stop throwing us under the bus.
The contemptible Gay Uncle Tom’s of the HRC need to accept their share of the blame for continuing to grant legitimacy to Democratic homophobic bigotry.
I would encourage people to vote Green. It’s not a wasted vote any more than a vote for the D’s or R’s is a wasted vote. With an electoral system which is so laughably primitive and undemocratic, and designed in such a way as to guarantee that ONLY Democrats or Republicans can achieve power, then you may as well vote Green.
Civil disobedience and social unrest may also help.
The political system is a complete sham though. It functions to protect big business. Nothing more!
Pat Duffy
Not surprised. After all, we helped get her husband elected and as soon as he could he threw us “under the bus”. Sound familiar?
Not Votng for Southerners OR Black men EVER AGIAN!
jason
Pat Duffy,
Exactly right.
The Democrats are well-trained tricksters. They’re dishonest at heart. They will manipulate and deceive us. We in the GLBT community are their useful idiots. We vote for them time and again despite the fact that they’ve delivered almost nothing to us at a federal level.
However, I sense the rise of a new generation of gays. This new generation is far more intelligent and analytical than the old gays. The old gays simply wanted the right to meet and pick up strangers in a gay bar.
Steve
@WillBFair: She’s also a member of The Family, according to Jeff Sharlett’s book, the toxic group of congressional Christianists who look at the world and see God everywhere. I think she’s a more traditional left-winger than Obama which is why I was shocked to discover this about her. I don’t think he’s left-wing at all, it was the reason I found it hard to support him, and quite conservative socially. But I do agree with you about ‘marriage’. I don’t see what the fuss is in calling it a civil union if I have the same tax, inheritance, and other rights. And I write this as someone who took the trouble to go to Canada to marry. I live in NY State and though our marriage is recognized it has no standing federally, and that’s where it matters.
Steve
@jason: ActUp? Ever hear of it?
GlacierGuy
I don’t care what they call it, I just want a contract between the government and my partner and I! A marriage is a ceremony between two people not the government. Church’s don’t grant the legal benefits of marriage, the government does. So call it a Civil Union, Same-Sex Union…I don’t care what’s in the name! just issue me a license so I can file it with the government and get the same benefits as my straight neighbors have in their union! Period!
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
You know what?? I 100% agree. At this point I say let the hatefilled bigots have the institution of marriage. Its only a freaking piece of paper. As long as we have every single right and legal entitlement that hetro couples have as a result marriage let ’em have it. Think of every single hetro marriage you have ever attended. They are cookie cutter events which are repeated thousands of times each and every week……..
Every single Gay commitment ceremony I have been to has been more meaningfull, inspiring, creative, and joyous than any straight ceremony I ever attended. Marriage is an institution of the church and temples, I disagree with 99% of the bullshit that comes out of the hyprotical mouthes of their leaders. Why should we grovel and beg for their false ceromonies?
Flipper
@InscrutableTed: ”
She said she hasn’t supported same-sex marriage. Is that the same as opposing it? Or is she saying she neither supports or opposes it?”
To not support SSM is to oppose it – there is no middle ground; there is no position of antipathy when it comes to equality. You either support equality or you don’t.
Obama = Clinton
hey there Obama-hating gay slacktivists…how’s that “Hillary in 2012” fantasy workin out for ya?
Oliver
I thought that part of the reason the gay community hates Obama so much is because Hillary is so much better on gay rights than him. I can’t believe she just dropped this bomb shell on us.Shhhhhm
the crustybastard
@PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS:
“Married” is not just a word anymore than “citizen” is just a word. They’re both specially favored legal statuses.
If churches shrilly insisted that a person couldn’t be a citizen unless they were baptized, would you be so quick to abandon another’s right to citizenship?
Stop letting them frame the issue.
joedee1969
How about fighting for the unemployed Mrs. Clinton?
http://americaspeaksink.com/2010/11/unemployment-benefits-update-november-2010-more-lies-and-misinformation/
robert in nyc
I suspect her reason for saying that same-sex marriage is not equal to hetero marriage is based on the worn out procreation mantra. If that’s the case, then she must not recognise the marriages of straights who can’t procreate or refuse to. Its funny, five states recognize same-sex civil marriage but she doesn’t, so who cares what she thinks? She’s just another ignorant,bigoted dumbass like Obama. At least her husband said he supports it, easy when you’re no longer in office I suppose.
Markie-Mark
@Casey: You are exactly right. I registered Green and I’m voting Green from now on. The Green Party has had marriage equality in their platform since 1990. If you’re against marriage equility you are not welcome to run as a Green candidate.
robert in nyc
Daez, No. 23…actually the federal government does get involved in marriage when it confers more than 1100 rights enjoyed by straight married couples, rights that can come only through marriage, not including the 400+ that come with states’ rights. State government also gets involved with marriage directly when it issues marriage licenses or when the legislatures legalize same-sex civil marriage. Though there is no constitutional right to marriage, the federal government is most definitely involved, something that Obama fails to or refuses to understand when it comes to SSM. I’d like to ask him where he thingks the rights and privileges bestowed on straight couples via marriage come from if not from the federal government. Ditto the equally ignorant Clinton.
Markie-Mark….I’m with you, I registered with the Greens five years ago, the only party that supports us fully.
aj
whoever really believes that Hillary or even Obama doesn’t support gay marriage is just fucking nuts…they both support it, and they’re both politicians……
Wait a minute…..one’s a politician and the other is a government employee who was a former politician
I really don’t know if anyone here(on queerty) has served as a federal employee and/or in the military but you can NOT criticize the law or the President
DOMA is the law and she can’t say anything about it!!!!! Especially not on TV in another country…..Headlines next day, “Hillary goes rogue on Obama over gay marriage!”
greenluv1322
Excuses for Hillary! Yeah, anything to help out this old dumb cunt!
Queer Supremacist
In the words of that closet queen Gomer Pyle, “surprise, surprise, surprise!”
That anyone believed Lady MacBeth would be any different than Hussein Obama on gay marriage is laughable. No wonder this party’s symbol is a jackass.
Vote Libertarian. Pro-gay equality since 1972.
robert in nyc
No. 58, Queer Supremacist…the Libertarian Party wants the government out of marriage altogether, but here’s the conundrum. In doing that and if it ever came to fruition and I’ve no doubt it won’t, how would married couples get access to the federal and state government benefits of marriage? Every married couple gay and straight would end up with nothing other than the fact that they’re married, no more lower government tax breaks for married couples and for their children. I don’t think they’d be prepared to give all of that up. Its just not realistic.
Which equality bills has the Libertarian Party authored or introduced on the floor? Can you name them please? I know the Republicans haven’t penned any.
Queer Supremacist
@robert in nyc: Those benefits would cease to exist for everyone.
Meanwhile, you should ask yourself why those taxes that breeders supposedly need breaks from are being levied in the first place. They’re going to pay the salaries of our oppressors.
We don’t need an equality bill because we’re already superior to them. What needs to be done is to forbid the government on any level from treating us as inferiors.
robert in nyc
No. 60…then I wouldn’t have any problem living without the benefits and privileges, but I know the majority of straights would. I agree with you that we shouldn’t be treated as inferiors on any level but I just don’t see how we could achieve that without the support of the electorate. I don’t think its realistic to think that the majority of the republicans would support any of it and those who vote for them. Its a nice ideal but its not going to happen. I think we need some civil unrest among our own similar to that of the 60s to get anywhere. Politicians only respond when they’re backs are up against the wall and the votes and donations aren’t forthcoming from us and can no longer be taken for granted. If the Libertarians are so pro equality, why haven’t they been vocal about it, taking the GOP and Democrats on during the recent election campaign? I haven’t heard one word from them. Nothing from Ron Paul either. What is his actual stand on marriage equality aside from the party?
ewe
She is throwing gay people underneat the bus again. The only difference now is that she has gone global.
ewe
Tony Perkins, Alex Carolla and now Hilary Clinton. The three of them have smelly crusty assholes.
ewe
Is it Adam Carolla? whatever. Him and his eve can burn in their garden.
ewe
Notice how all these haters are the ones that scream government should stay out of our private lives.
Queer Supremacist
@robert in nyc: I don’t give a shit what the breeders are okay with. But if they want to keep those benefits they damn well better extend them to same-sex couples. It’s all or nothing. Anyway, they deserve to be overtaxed. If they want an all-encompassing social democracy let them pay for it. But I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to have my income extorted to pay for corporate welfare, an alleged safety net that has had the side effect of exacerbating the impoverishment of the ghetto (the source of a great deal of homophobia) and dissuades private citizens from aiding the needy, and foreign aid that props up anti-gay dictatorships. Nor do I, as a gay man, want fundamentalist rednecks from Alabama whose daddies and granddaddies were in the Klan to have any say in decisions regarding any part of my health care or insurance. I have no problem with the military, because they are authorized by the Constitution. That’s about the only thing a government is good for (protecting citizens against aggression from other governments and from itself), and they’re not very good at it.
I agree their backs need to be up against the wall. But they need to be facing firing squads.
The Libertarians haven’t been vocal about it because they, like most people, are more concerned with economic issues that affect EVERYONE. They had a press release rightly criticizing gay voters who blindly followed Democrats down the rabbit hole of inequality, but it disappeared.
Keep in mind I don’t support everything the LP believes. Their foreign policy is incoherent and gutless, basically “peace through cheapness”. Isolationism is a relic of a far more prejudiced time in which communication between foreign countries was much more limited than it is now.
And Ron Paul (of whom I’m not a big fan) is a Republican. So what he believes has little to do with what the LP believes. But here it is anyway.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul
But the GOP didn’t win this year. Democrats lost. And deservedly so. Hussein Obama and his stooge Shrillary are exhibits A and B. And gays who are frustrated with Democrats need to do two things:
A. Reconsider their beliefs on other “Democratic” positions.
B. Actually research what conservatives and libertarians believe. We need these people on our side, and we need to make our case for equality using their language. They don’t believe in the concept of “positive rights,” as in rights granted by government, only “negative rights,” i.e. limits on government powers. Otherwise the symptoms of Battered Wife Syndrome will reoccur every two years until the Supreme Court steps in.
jimmybobby
I DOUBT SHE HAS HAD HER FEET UP IN THE AIR IN OH SAY 10 YEARS. ICK.