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June 22, 2007

NY Blade column: Hillary’s Moments

We must demand clear statements from candidates about LGBT civil rights

By MICHAEL LUCAS
Friday, June 22, 2007
http://nyblade.com/2007/6-22/viewpoint/opinion/lucas.cfm

In the Democratic presidential field, our community’s pet candidate is Hillary. The junior senator from New York schmoozes our donors and rakes in our money. In the first quarter, Hillary got 53 percent of individual contributions to the top three democratic candidates in heavily gay Los Angeles zip codes. Obama got 34 percent and Edwards 13 percent. That’s according to Frontier’s magazine. Donor patterns in gay zip codes across the country are broadly similar.

She’s our girl. But what are we to her?

When she talks to gay donors, she tells us what we want to hear. A month ago, she gave the keynote speech at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner. (Note: The Human Rights Campaign is the country’s wealthiest and most prestigious if not necessarily most effective LGBT political lobbying organization, beloved by gay men in the heartland—a major source of Clinton campaign money.) Clinton said she opposes the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy her husband had instituted. “This policy doesn’t just hurt gays and lesbians, it hurts all our troops, and this to me is a matter of national a and we’re going to fix it,” Clinton said to rousing applause from the wealthy attendees.

Brave words, speaking to the ghetto. But who heard them, except her gay donor pool? Exactly nobody. The speech was not announced and remains unpublished, though a video was posted on the group’s web site.

When Clinton talks outside the gay ghetto, she sounds quite different. When General Peter Pace, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nation’s highest military officer, called homosexuality “immoral,” Clinton was asked if she agreed. “Well, I am going to leave that to others to conclude,” was her pathetic response. She then said she wants to “make sure” that gays ands lesbians “can” serve in the military—which means exactly nothing, because gays and lesbians already can serve in the military … as long as they keep their private life in the closet.

THAT’S NOT THE FIRST time Clinton’s support for our community has remained safely inside the ghetto. During her first Senate Campaign, in 1999, she said at a $100,000 gay fundraiser in SoHo that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was a failure and that, if elected, she would work to overturn the policy. Now she’s been in the senate for over six years and what has she done? Nothing.

There is no doubt in my mind that Sen. Clinton likes gays and lesbians. Inside the ghetto, her attention can be touching. One longtime Democratic fundraiser told me about Hillary’s warm words to his new boyfriend. A leading lesbian Democratic activist told me about the long letter she received from the Senator upon the birth of their baby girl, directed to their baby girl. Her speeches at LGBT fundraisers are sincere and promising … inside the ghetto.

Why is she so bland when she speaks to the larger America? Of course, it’s tempting to blame her, to talk about hypocrisy.

But I blame mostly us. We are the ones who fail to ask “our” candidates to take publicly clear stands on our issues. We are the ones who write checks and give our votes without attaching clear demands. Look at the Jewish community. No candidate will get a cent of Jewish money who does not clearly articulate his or her support for the security of Israel. We must take a lesson from their book. We need to demand from our candidates an equally clear and unequivocal statement about the security of our lives and the advancement of our rights.

Posted by Michael at June 22, 2007 12:54 PM

Comments

Posted by: Felicia at June 23, 2007 11:53 AM

Posted by: Dave at June 24, 2007 04:16 PM

Posted by: Tight Hole at June 25, 2007 01:47 PM

Posted by: bj at June 28, 2007 06:18 AM