she is not Bill's rib.

Umm..Bill is not running for President and Hillary is so let's examine her record and her committment to gay issues as First lady and as Senator of NY.

She was just First Lady at the time.  She can't be blamed for the screwups of her husband's administration, nor can she claim the successes as her own.  She is her own person.

We should look at her Senate record* on this issue instead.

* - I do not know what her record is currently.

This gay man trusts Hillary FAR more than he trusts Obama OR Bill

Folks who should know better continue to trot this 'show horse' out into the arena when they get the chance.

Please find an example prior to Clinton of anything positive being done for GLBT rights from any sitting POTUS.

Just one.

Clinton did his best, was swatted down not just by the right but also by some very highly placed Democratic leaders.  What we got with DADT was not perfect, but something that has actually served it's purpose.  

The Clintons have done far more for the promotion of GLBT rights than any one in this race.

Stop trying to paint them as the enemy, some of us are not buying your goods.

DOMA was a Clinton policy - he even ran ads on it in his 1996 re-election campaign, until the Human Rights Campaign gave the White house to understand that it wouldn't accept that.

Same with DADT. Thank God Truman had a spine and went ahead to racially integrate the military.

The Clintons are not friends to the LGBTQ community. Not enemies, either, but if they think they can derive an advantage from it, they will throw us under the bus so quickly it will make heads spin.

...that you're worried about hillary diddling interns, too.

did you read the advocate article last fall? hillary gets it.

Neel Lattimore, who served as press secretary to Clinton for five years when she was first lady, has similarly warm and fuzzy anecdotes to share. When he was promoted to the highly visible job, Lattimore took Clinton aside and told her he was gay, just so she would know in case any of the Clintons' numerous political foes wanted to make an issue of it. The conversation in the Map Room turned into a heart-to-heart. "I said, `I want to be a good role model for my nieces and nephews -- there's not a lot of role models out there for gay men,' " he remembers. "I thought that was a perfectly logical thing to say. But she was like, `Who are you running around with?' I said, `Excuse me?' And she said, `If you don't find some people that you consider to be role models in the next several weeks, come back to me and I'll introduce you to some.'

"That's when it was clear that she had friends who were gay," he says. "If I was struggling to find people that I could look up to, she was like, `I'll give you a list, I'll set up some meetings. You can feel good about this.' "

Several years later, no longer in her employ, Lattimore held a fund-raiser for her New York Senate campaign at Washington's Mayflower Hotel, attended largely by gay friends of his. It was a campy affair -- "We're showing pictures of her with bad hair on the screens, and she's just laughing!" -- but the tone turned downright mushy when Lattimore introduced his mentor to the crowd. "I told the story about the role models, and I said, `Mrs. Clinton, I want to introduce you to my role models.' " He pointed to the 500 guests in the room. "And I heard her very quietly in the back go, `Oh, Neel.' "

Hillary Clinton is not Bill Clinton, not to mention that she has been vocally against DADT since the beginning. She never believed it was a good policy just the best we could do at the time. The Clinton's are not responsible with the horrendous way it was administered.

Just the other day she made as far reached, forward thinking and gay positive a proposal and remarks as I have ever heard from any politition, especially one running for their life in a hotly contested state like PA. She even promised to use the power and pulpit of the presidency to put pressure on nations who beat, murder and repress gays and to give us equality in immigration and the tax code.

As a lesbian who has been politically active in the gay community for my whole life, I can tell you that she will do far more and mean forfor our community than Barack Obama ever could or ever would.

Unfortunately Clinton is a little worse on gay rights than Obama.......Obama favors a full repeal of DOMA.....whereas Clinton only supports a partial repeal. She states that the federal government should recognize same sex marriages but leaves it up to each state as to what to do. There's a BIG difference. I am a gay man, legally married in massachusetts. If I move to another state I would like to remain married. Hillary's position would leave that decision to the states. Barack sees the folly of such a position and I would remain  married no matter what state I lived in.

I trust Hillary to do what is politically possible for Gay and Lesbians Americans.  I heard her statement on gay rights on Ellen earlier this week, and I was very impressed, again. As a New Yorker, I've watched Hillary march in every gay pride parade in NYC since she's been our senator.  Can someone tell me where Obama stands?  What statements he has made recently?  Has he ever made a statment such as marching in Chicago's gay pride parades? I honestly don't know, except that everytime I think of Obama, I think about his virulently antigay, pastor supporter.

Speaking as a member of the GLBT community, I (personally) have found Hillary Clinton to be stronger on the issue of gay rights than Barack Obama.

This link has a bunch of great information about Clinton's stance on homosexual rights (just a simply google search brought it up), including a repeal of DADT.  (To be fair, Obama supports this as well).

The issue I take to task most with Obama is his tour with Donnie McClurken.  You konw, I just feel that if he is comfortable campaign with people whopromote that kind of view on homosexuality, that eventually Obama is going to realize there are more haters out there than there are homosexual, and play that to his political strategy of "changing the tone."  People are not going to stop having their prejudices simply because you claim to be bringing in a new era of politics, especially when actions don't match with words.  I worry that a President Obama, should he manage to win the nomination and the GE, would quickly run to a more centrist position on gay rights.

Hillary and Bill have a lot in common and have had a lot of shared experience, but gay rights is one issue on which I feel they differ--and for me, this is just another reason why I'm even more enthusiastic about Hill than I was about Bill.

I love how everyone is a fucking expert here on DOMA.

First lets get some facts straightened out.  A federal amendment ban on gay marriage did not just COME out of thin air after Mass. S.C decided it was legal for gays to marry there.  It began way back in the early to mid 1990s when Hawaii had gay marriage pending in their courts.

DOMA prevented a gay marriage amendment into the constitution in the early 90's AND in 2004.

Second - DOMA only has 3 sections. The first section says "This act can be known as defense of marriage act" a repeal of this section, does NOTHING.

The second portion of DOMA - which is the part that prevented a gay marriage amendment says that no state has to recognize the marriage of two people in another state.

The third says the federal government does not have to recognize the marriages of gays in the states.

Repealing the 3rd Section, which is what Hillary wants to do will open up all of the federal benefits for married individuals.

Repeal the second, and you have a gay marriage amendment battle AGAIN to fight off.

Don't agree with your premise here, but at least let's get some housekeeping out of the way - since you are writing about the early nineties, please confirm that you were a politically aware, um, adult at that time.  I find these sites to be crawling with "astute commenters" making historical criticisms about the Clintons when they were actually watching "Saved by the Bell" in their pajamas at the time.

But let's assume that you were a politically active adult in the early 90's.  Do you remember how brutal the partisanship was when Clinton beat Bush? That was the beginning of the Gingrich DeLay years, a nasty brand of social and fiscal conservatism that is still felt today.  The Clintons believed strongly in gay rights, but governing required some shrewd maneuvering, something I am afraid many Obama supporters seem to think their guy would never stoop to were he to become president(I hate to disabuse you of this but he will.)  DOMA was a hedge against a constitutional amendment against gay marriage, plain and simple.  Anyone who doubts the Clintons' commitment to GLBT rights and healthcare, of all things, is seeing Washington in an extremely naive light.

This is where I disconnect from the majority of Obama supporters, things are seen by them in such a "black and white" way without any grays.
DOMA wasn't Bill Clinton caving to the anti-gay forces on the right as much as it was a roadblock to keep a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage from coming to pass.

And as an aside the only politician that has been speaking (and by speaking I mean actually talk not a link on a website)publicly about gay rights at the moment is Clinton which  is pretty ballsy considering her current status in this race.

Then again, I'm not voting for Hillary based on her experience.

By the way, I don't know what Obama will do about gay rights, but several (though not all) gay people I know won't vote for him for any reason because of his extremely inappropriate decision to employ known gay-basher Donnie McClurkin. Obama has said that he supports civil unions and that he'd leave it up to the states, but admitted that, in his mind, marriage is something between a man and a woman. There's no way someone who thinks like that will be better about gay rights than Hillary.

as most Americans see it. Most Americans understood that blacks are born black. However, most Americans do not think most gays are born so. Sad as it is, it is true. They also find gay bahaviour repulsive. We were coming off the 12 year Reagan Revolution at the time, with 12 years of GOP military appointments, who were socially conservative and not having any of it. Truman had 12 years of FDR people in his military to enforce his rules and to accept them. Turman, because of what I mentioned early could more easily justify it to the people, along with that blacks served nobly in WWII. Clinton was already having a tough time trying to help gays, because of the misperceptions most have. But at least he tried. He threw away the political capital he had. he came to washington with high approval ratings, only to see them dip over the controversy. Gays are lucky it was amongst the first things he tried. There was also no big public movement, or significant one to get them in, the whole black and minority community wanted blacks integrated.

Also, i dont' see why you emphasize Clinton being elected with a plurality. Without Perot, he would have gotten an absolute majority, as proven by exit polls from that year http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.ht ml?res=9E0CE0DB1F3FF936A35752C1A96495826 0 and it is a talking point I always see, because you buy into the myth, and use it to try to discredit Bill Clinton's winning 1992 strategy. Face it, his centrism worked. Before Perot reentered, he was on his way to a landslide. But even if he got his absolute majority, he still would had trouble on that front. But I am sick of using such a talking point, because the right wing used and uses it all the time, so they don't have to admit Bush Sr. LOST and was defeated by BILL CLINTON. i know its tough to see 1992, and think why we lost in 2004, with Kerry being "centrist" but he was centrist on the wrong issues. Clinton was centrist on exactly the ones we got bopped with in 1968, 72, 80, 84 and 88. Kerry was centrist on a war, and then flip flopped. Was voting Iraq centrist wrong? YES, but that kind of issue is different than crime and welfare. Those were the central issues in the 80s. You also look at 1994. But that happened because Clinton tacked too left from his 92 platform. If he had done welfare reform instead of health care, or had not done gays in the army, he may have kept Congress. Also, you blame never the extremely hateful media treatment he got. 1994 happened because of the media and whitewater, paula jones, gays in the military, and the GOP killing health care, as Bill Kristol told them to do. If he had done welfare reform in 1994, we woulda kept Congress.

Being said, I think Hillary would have a MUCH easier time getting gays in the military, because of the shortage of troops in Iraq and thru the army. She could make the case we need more troops, and here is an easy 200 thousand. Also, we are more socially liberal than in 1993, when the religious right had just had 12 years. Today, we may almost elect a black President if he gets nominated. Also, in 1993, there was no big demand for more troops. The Cold War was over. Bill did not have too much of a practical reason for it. Hillary has a very practical reason for it. That is the difference. We need troops now. In 1993, we were cutting defense spending in the wake of the Cold War, which actually started under Bush I.

Hillary has been front and foreward on this issue for years.  She brought it up on Ellen's show 2 days ago and she brings it up alot in the campaign.

There is no question in my mind that Hillary is far more dedicated to Gay causes than Obama who does not appear to be "dedicated".

Obama has never marched in a gay pride parade (hillary has), Obama traveled through South Carolina with Donnie Mcclurkin(?) a homophobe and anti-gay preacher, Obama would not meet for an interview with the Gay newspaper in Philadelphia (Hillary did).

Hillary has given interviews to Advocate and has been at the forefront of gay issues. After her interview on the LOGO channel last year, she went to The Abbey - a gay bar in West Hollywood to speak.

She is not afraid of this issue at all.

As she has stated, "it is personal to me" and that is because she has many good friends that are gay.  She also has alot of people in and on her campaign staff that are gay.

When exit polls were taken of how gays voted (CA and NY) - she had close to 70% of this vote.

Gays & Lesbians know her and know she will fight for their cause. She won't back down like her husband did.

Levin statements from the Senate floor using DOMA as a reason against federal marriage amendment:
http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release .cfm?id=256575

Harry Reid using DOMA as a bar to a federal marriage amendment:
http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/rec ord.cfm?id=256499&

Senator Conryn - republican thug, quoting Hillary using DOMA as a bar to federal marriage:

"Some people have said, don't worry. The Senator from New York, Senator Clinton said, don't worry, we do not have to amend right now, we can wait until after the Federal Defense of Marriage Act is held unconstitutional. In fact, she said no one had challenged it, and I have attempted to clarify that by my earlier statements."

Dodd using DOMA to fight a federal marriage amendment
http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/ 3503

Lieberman (Yes even lieberman) - Using DOMA to fight against a federal marriage amendment:
http://lieberman.senate.gov/newsroom/rel ease.cfm?id=256584