Hillary Clinton had some strong, supportive things to say about LGBT parents this past weekend. Some, however, are making much of her previous, seemingly negative comments about us. What to think?
Clinton, speaking to a group of HRC volunteers Saturday, said:
I’ll fight to defend lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents. Eleven states ban same-sex couples and LGBT individuals from adopting. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of kids in foster care are ready—in fact, eager—to become part of loving families. This to my mind is one of the cruelest vestiges of anti-gay bigotry. And it’s also really cruel to those kids. Being a good parent has absolutely nothing to do with your sexual orientation or your gender identity. The thousands of happy, healthy children out there being raised by LGBT parents proves that. And as President, I will push to cut off federal funding for any public child welfare agency that discriminates against LGBT people. For me there is no excuse — none — for hurting children and families like this.
Watch her entire speech below:
Jennifer Bendery of HuffPo reported last Wednesday, however, that Clinton had been “furious” in 2011 over a State Department decision to use “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” instead of “Mother” and “Father” on U.S. passport applications. Mark Joseph Stern at Slate picked up on this in a piece titled, “Hillary Clinton’s Email About Gay Parents Should Seriously Trouble Her LGBT Supporters.”
Fact is, though, Clinton’s influence on the passport application wording is old news. As I wrote in 2011, Clinton did provide input to the State Department after they announced the new wording. Given that she was Secretary of State, her input may have been strongly put if felt she should have been brought in on the decision beforehand, regardless of her feelings on the matter one way or the other. State then changed the wording again to include all the terms: “Mother or Parent 1” and “Father or Parent 2.” The Associated Press also reported in 2011 that Clinton thought removing “Mother” and “Father” from the forms “would spark an unwanted fight with newly powerful Republican lawmakers who are calling for major cuts in foreign operations spending and have challenged administration policy in numerous areas.”
That’s basically the same thing she said in the newly released e-mails:
I’m not defending that decision, which I disagree w and knew nothing about, in front of this Congress. I could live w letting people in nontraditional families choose another descriptor so long as we retained the presumption of mother and father. We need to address this today or we will be facing a huge Fox-generated media storm led by [Sarah] Palin et al.
She’s playing politics, sure—but that was part of her job. If she helped deflect a conservative backlash over the situation, more power to her. Yes, there are times when one has to say “backlash be damned,” but as I said in 2011, on the scale of battles that we had to fight, that was a minor one. Clinton did not argue for removing “Parent 1/2”—and that indicates she did understand the need for such terms—but felt that eliminating the traditional “Mother/Father” monikers entirely would have been too big a step, too soon. Some may disagree with her call—but I don’t think this indicates any deep-seated animosity that should “trouble” the LGBTQ community.
