a huge grain of salt. He is way too RW for my taste and he's certainly no fan of Hillary - or Bill.

"upon signing it, he (Bill Clinton) began airing ads on Christian radio stations touting his effort to fight gay marriage. Clearly, there was more going on here – a lot more."

is a matter of public record.

So your argument fails the laugh test

whatta "huh??" moment that was

That's almost 2.74 times sadder and fails the laugh test even more.

So yes, a conservative columnist would definitely favor her

a Democrat in the primaries, you'll have to live with that one.

relentlessly.

amendment, there was a lot of very ugly, incendiary talk from the right. It was very ugly and both Clintons made it clear then that they were over a barrel. No one can try to claim that they were anti-gay. They simply didn't have the support to do much more than they did. I am planning on voting for Bernie but that doesn't mean we should unfairly smear the competition.

The Clintons have always supported the gay movement and have always had openly gay friends.

Last edited Tue Oct 27, 2015, 04:40 PM - Edit history (1)

The point is Mrs. Clinton is asserting that DOMA was designed to protect marriage equality by stopping a constitutional amendment, and that's simply not true. To ensure reelection, some people got thrown under the bus.

Think about what you wrote? Did someone have a gun to their head? All you are saying is exactly what Kornacki wrote. There was no effort about a constitutional amendment. However, the right wing and religious wing politicians were using the issue to fund raise in their base.

So the only barrel was political election calculations so the Clintons threw the issue under the bus. It is not that they didn't have "support to do much more than they did". They did not do anything positive. They supported the wrong action. It is the case, that Bill Clinton affirmatively signed the bill.. They did not do anything positive only negative with respect to civil rights for gay people. Then, they gave public statements saying not that they were forced to but they were emphatically against gay marriage.

A direct quote from a 2004 speech (after DOMA) ‘I believe marriage is not just a bond but a sacred bond between a man and a woman.” In the same speech she also said marriage as between man and woman was a fundamental bed rock principal that it exists between a man and a woman ... (going back through civilization).

It is kind of like her war vote. It is not just that she voted wrong or supported the wrong side in a political battle, its that it was not a silent support. In both the war vote and the gay marriage issue, the Clintons took affirmative and strong public positions rather than just avoid an issue that was wrong but supported by a public which had not yet "evolved".

When you say they did not do anything more than they did, you are really just saying what bothers some of us, that she is a purely poll driven political animal and will say and do anything. Either she is willing to sacrifice her principals or she has the wrong ones.

It's on another thread on this. After the Rachel show, it was investigated and there never was an attempt to propose a constitutional amendment to make gay marriage illegal.

So...yes, Kornacki was right. The Clinton's swung on this issue for political expediency. Like so many other issues. I agree at the time the tide was against gay marriage, and in favor of DOMA, but that did not stop Bernie for supporting gay rights at that period in time. He has convictions...and he sticks with them...he does not swing in the wind for political expediency. Especially on human rights issues.

As President, Bill Clinton infuriated many in the gay community by signing into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which blocked federal recognition of same-sex marriages, and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which required gay members of the military to remain in the closet about their sexual orientation or be ejected from service. Arguably, Clinton didn't exactly have a lot of room to maneuver. DOMA passed by an overwhelming, veto-proof majority. While it was introduced by Republicans in 1996 (by Bob Barr, who would eventually run for president as a Libertarian Party candidate in 2008 and apologize for sponsoring the legislation), it got 118 Democratic votes in the House and 32 Democratic votes in the Senate.


~snip~

Clinton's insistence that she is not a politician who holds positions that are shrewdly calculated on political expedience rather than ideology or philosophy has put her in a place where she has to justify the passage and her previous support for DOMA. And, of course, Clinton has done so in a way that is shrewdly calculated, but is also remarkably obvious to people who remember the 1990s. She is insisting, in defiance of all evidence, that the passage of DOMA was to protect gay people from something even worse. In a recent interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, Clinton insisted that DOMA was an effort to protect gay people from a possible federal constitutional amendment that would have banned recognition of same-sex marriage permanently and would have been immune to Supreme Court intervention. But it's just not true, and over the weekend, several prominent gay activists who were around at the time have been tweeting about what nonsense this attempt to revise history is.To show how cynical this effort is, this position by the Clintons that DOMA was about protecting gay people from something even worse goes all the way back to 2013, all of two years ago, which was the same year that the Supreme Court struck down the part of DOMA that prohibited the federal government from recognizing state-approved same-sex marriages. Looks like the Clintons jumped on the last train to be on the "right side of history."

But back when DOMA actually happened, President Clinton didn't just sign the law; his campaign actually ran radio ads targeting religious conservatives that touted it. And there was no evidence that a constitutional amendment was coming. It's not even a logical argument. If the Republicans were the ones pushing DOMA, this would seem to indicate that there actually was no amendment potentially in the works. Indeed, former Human Rights Campaign President Elizabeth Birch wrote that there was no interest in an amendment when Clinton was president. It was raised during George W. Bush's term in a politically calculated effort to get out religious right votes.

So maybe Bill thought there was nothing to gain by vetoing it.

The rest of the piece is more sympathetic to Bill, though. It explains how he nearly lost his presidency to trying to get gay soldiers into the military, and didn't want to risk putting all three parts of government into Republican hands on the issue again.

That's why he signed it. The administration thought even vetoing the bill could make it a wedge issue. That's it. No need for revisionism here.

anything but a veto would have made it impossible for the Rs to claim that it was a bipartisan issue. He did that with the Glass-Steagall repeal also. And in doing so he took the blame out of R hands and joined them.

All too often the Clintons refuse to take a stand on an issue because "who knows which way the wind will be blowing tomorrow"

that means that the much-vaunted worse bill would not have gone through either. He had the golden opportunity to stand tall and he did not take it. Just like when questioned about a blow job, when he could have said, Yes, I did. Next question." His chumming with the Bushes. Barbara calling him a son. If he is a son, then what is Hillary to them? DIL?

of both AIDS and ENDA which which each have parts to play in what went on and the dynamics of the time which were very unlike those of today. A bunch of good Democrats, one Republican and Bernie voted against DOMA in the Congress. They did the right thing. Everybody else did the wrong thing. It's that simple and they were all of them warned and warned well, this is from the DOMA testimony by Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun:

" I hope that every person on this floor and every person who is going to
look at and vote on this bill considers for a moment what the judgment of
history might be, if 50 years from now their grandchildren look at their
debate and look at their words in support of this mean-spirited legislation,
and consider the judgment that will be cast upon them then.

I had for a moment thought to bring to this floor some of the floor
debate and some of the debate that happened during the civil rights era when
the very same arguments that are being made in favor of this legislation were
made in favor of keeping African Americans in second class citizenship in
this country. Those arguments ultimately failed. And as Dr. King pointed out,
he said, `The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.'

I hope that we will not contribute to the retarding of that arc in the
direction of justice, that we will all recognize that this is an
inappropriate legislative activity by the Federal Government, and that we
leave it up to the States in their wisdom to decide what kind of domestic
relations arrangements they will or will not allow, and that we allow, in the
final analysis, for the opportunity of every American to enjoy the same
protections under the law as every other American and that we do not single
out gay and lesbian Americans for second class status and as second class
citizens by legislation labeled specifically to their domestic relations when
we have never legislated in that area before in this body. On that point,
Madam President, I yield the floor."
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bit.listserv.politics/Z-B3Z7FBeLU

They all knew what they were doing.

I want people in office with courage. Every single one of us as human beings are judged by how we choose to be or vote or talk or support. Every single one of us has a reason for what we do. I despise people who can't own their mistakes and try to weasel out of them. I would have a ton of respect if that was done. I can even see voting for someone who has make a change but been honest about the journey. Not this way I can't. Enough stood tall. Those that did not were only there for themselves anyway.

against him in the upcoming election. And a Constitutional amendment would have locked us into that position for decades.

Placating them temporarily with DOMA, when there was very little public support for same sex marriage, was the strategic thing to do.

Bernie could be the lone voice in Vermont. But a President who acts as a lone voice in the wilderness is a President who will not win reelection. I fail to see how that would have benefited gay people or anyone else.

Had he vetoed, the bill would have passed on override. There was no plan for an amendment at that time, nor would there have been.

It would have been used as a wedge issue in the election, and it may or may not have cost him an election.

Veto and it would have been overridden by the congress, sign and it would be revisited years later. I remember the ugliness of that period and I remember some bringing up a constitutional amendment banning homosexuality if that was possible. I have no doubt the AIDS epidemic was a catalyst for the crazies.

My father and his partner didn't hold that vote against Bill Clinton. They knew a symbolic vote against the bill would have gained nothing for LGBT people and could have caused a much worse backlash. Once a Constitutional amendment is passed, it requires a vote of 3/4 of the states to overturn. A huge hurdle.

And my memory is different than this reporter's. I remember talk of a constitutional amendment from the minute Hawaii's decision came down. It would have been the only way to overturn it.

Bills passed by Congress and sent to the President for signature DO NOT NEED TO BE SIGNED by the President in order to become laws. If he fails to sign them, they become laws BY DEFAULT. (The exception is if Congress were to recess within 10 days of having sent the bill to the President; in that case, an unsigned bill does NOT become law, which is known as a 'pocket veto'.)

So NO, he did NOT have to sign it at all. DOMA would EVEN THEN have become law, having the alleged effect of forestalling an earlier 'federal marriage amendment'.

Bill Clinton didn't hurt the cause by signing DOMA. And vetoing it wouldn't have helped the cause.

What he did do was improve his chances of re-election -- which benefited LGBT people and everyone else.

it had been needed -- to hold off a constitutional amendment -- was no longer a threat.

It was never a good bill; it was just better than the virtually permanent alternative of the constitutional amendment the rightwing began to push the instant Hawaii's pro-gay marriage judicial decision was made.

I was an adult during that period, with a gay father with a partner. I remember the era very well. In 1996, as the article points out, only about 30% of Americans supported gay marriage. It is hard to overstate how much the world has changed in a relatively short period of time.

If not (and it really wasn't) then that defense of DOMA makes no sense.


Did you watch Dr. Maddow interview Sen. Sanders? If not, maybe you should. They both agree that a Constitutional Amendment was not a real possibility.

If you haven't seen it yet, it is here:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show



P.S. I was born in 1963 and remember 1996 well also. Yes, only about 30% of Americans supported marriage equality at that time, but that does not mean that people wanted to amend the Constitution to prevent it.

And I agree with the Human Rights Campaign, which strongly endorsed Clinton in 1996, even though they had recommended he veto DOMA.

He went on in his second term to accomplish much more for LGBT rights than would have been accomplished under a President Dole. I don't see what the point would have been of vetoing a very popular bill that had enough votes for an override.

(Sanders, by the way, said in 1996 that he took the position he did as a States Rights issue. That's not how he chooses to portray it now.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027293084

After his reëlection, President Clinton became considerably bolder on gay-rights issues. He became the first President in history to endorse gay-rights legislation by announcing his support for a new federal hate-crimes statute that included sexual orientation. He supported legislation banning employment discrimination against gays. He continued, and even stepped up, appointments of openly gay Americans to important Administration positions, including the recess appointment of James Hormel as the first openly gay Ambassador. He signed an executive order banning sexual-orientation discrimination in the federal civilian workforce, leading the way for much of corporate America to follow.

and when the crowd changes, so do they.

It wasn't even new or exotic in 1096.



http://gaymarriage.procon.org/view.timeline.php?timelineID=000030

^snip^

May 18, 1970 - Same-Sex Couple Applies for Marriage License

"On May 18, 1970, two University of Minnesota students, Richard John 'Jack' Baker and James Michael McConnell applied to Hennepin County District Court clerk Gerald Nelson for a marriage license. He denied the application, because the applicants both were men.

Baker and McConnell sued Nelson, claiming Minnesota law on marriage made no mention of gender. The trial court was not impressed with the argument, agreeing with Nelson. The state Supreme Court agreed with the lower court. When Baker-McConnell went to the U.S. Supreme Court, the couple was rebuffed again...

Baker v. Nelson has been used in other states as precedent to block efforts at marriage equality."






https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions#Policy_of_the_early_Christian_Church_and_Middle_Ages

^snip^

After the Middle Ages in Europe, same-sex relationships were increasingly frowned upon and banned in many countries by the Church or the state. Nevertheless, Historian John Boswell argued that Adelphopoiesis, or brother-making, represented an early form of religious same-sex marriage in the Orthodox church. Alan Bray saw the rite of Ordo ad fratres faciendum ("Order for the making of brothers&quot as serving the same purpose in the medieval Roman Catholic Church. However, the historicity of Boswell's interpretation of the ceremony is contested by the Greek Orthodox Church, and his scholarship critiqued as being of dubious quality by theologian Robin Darling Young.

In late medieval France, it is possible the practice of entering a legal contract of "enbrotherment" (affrèrement) provided a vehicle for civil unions between unrelated male adults who pledged to live together sharing ‘un pain, un vin, et une bourse’ – one bread, one wine, and one purse. This legal category may represent one of the earliest forms of sanctioned same-sex unions.

While the church father, Augustine of Hippo, presented marriage as an important sacrament of the Christian Church in the 5th century CE, it wasn't until the "Sentences" of Peter Lombard, in the middle of the 12th century, that marriage became a part of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Christian Church.

A same-sex marriage between the two men Pedro Díaz and Muño Vandilaz in the Galician municipality of Rairiz de Veiga in Spain occurred on 16 April 1061. They were married by a priest at a small chapel. The historic documents about the church wedding were found at Monastery of San Salvador de Celanova.

How does that have anything to do with the OP or my response to the OP?

It wasn't unheard of in some cultures but I believe that the only country where even DP's were recognized was Denmark a that time...so as a matter of public policy, yes it was new and exotic