SF Chron: Hillary Silent on Gay Marriage Rulings
Hey, Hillary!
This ain't leadership in my book. And speaking of books, I looked up "triangulating wimp" in the dictionary and your name and photo were what I found.
For some reason, I doubt if you were in the Senate at the time when anti-miscegenation laws were challenged in the courts by civil rights advocates demanding marriage equality, you wouldn't seize the opportunity to weigh in on the matter, and probably in favor of eradicating such laws.
But in 2006, in San Francisco, of all American cities, you're silent on queer marriage. Now is not the time to not articulate a position on this issue.
And when will you voice concern for gays in Iran and the global gay vigils on July 19 marking the one-year anniversary of Iran hanging two gay teenagers? Surely you can oppose the hanging of homosexuals simply because they are gay, can't you? If you need the facts on the executions and the vigils, click here.
From Saturday's S.F. Chronicle:
New York Sen. Hillary Clinton -- widely considered a 2008 Democratic presidential favorite -- was surrounded in San Francisco on Friday by Democrats outspoken on the issue of same-sex marriage: a mayor who issued a landmark city decision to declare same-sex unions legal, a state assemblyman at the forefront of same-sex marriage legislation, and the party's pro-gay marriage candidate for governor.
But even standing alongside San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and state Treasurer Phil Angelides, the Democratic candidate for governor, on the morning after New York's highest court upheld a state ban on same-sex marriage, Clinton steadfastly ignored questions about the issue.
It was a marked contrast from a visit to San Francisco on a 1996 book tour, when the then-first lady expressed her views without reservation.
"Children are better off if they have a mother and a father,'' Clinton said in the San Francisco interview with the then-Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner. "My preference is that we do all we can to strengthen traditional marriage ... and that people engaged in parenting children be committed to one another.''
But Clinton refused to revisit the topic Friday morning at a meeting with reporters after a $1,000-a-person fundraiser for Angelides' campaign. But her views now appear surprisingly similar to those in a majority ruling from New York's highest court; the decision's author, Judge Robert Smith, suggested children are better raised in so-called traditional families.
Clinton's silence in the Democratic bastion of San Francisco highlighted how the issue of same-sex marriage still presents a political dilemma for Democrats. [...]
Speak up on gay marriage, Senator Clinton, if only because it is never acceptable for public officials to remain silent on important civil rights issues.
(Photo credit: AP/Eric Risberg)
2 comments:
As a conservative who would be willing to support legislation to legalize gay marriage, I'd like to thank you for keeping the pressure on Hillary clinton to support your "by any means necessary" approach to legalizing gay marriage. Like most conservatives, I am horified at the prospect of this former Black Panthers supporter actually sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office. If you can force her to al least hin that she would support gay marriage if she gets that chair, you will effectively kill any chance that she will do so. For that, we will owe you a debt of gratitiude.
Oh, by the way, I assume you support the decision of the Boston Globe to require their gay employees to marry their domestic partners if they want to maintain benefits for them. Since marriage is now a legal option n the People's Republic of Massachusetts, where gay marriage was imposed on the citizenry non-democratically, it would be discriminatory to allow gays, but not straights, to get benefits for their sex partners without marrying them. You do agree, don't you?
Granted, same-sex marriage in New York is a state-level issue (not a Federal one), but since Hillary is supposedly a New Yorker, she can certainly be asked her opinion on it.
I'm also a New Yorker and have expressed my opinion to my elected state-level officials, urging them to accept the challenge from the Court of Appeals to exercise leadership.
So, what are they, Real Men [of whatever gender if any], or wimps?
Don't expect Hillary to do anything not in her own political interest. All she needs to do is encourage the New York State Legislature to hold a hearing.
They haven't even done that.
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