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Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton took a cautious position on the question of DOMA. She supports repealing just Section 3 of DOMA, which defines marriage under federal law as a union between a man and a woman. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/AP)
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The responses from bloggers to last week’s presidential forum were swift and varied. Several writers live-blogged the event, offering readers real-time commentary. Below is a sampling of who said what after the Aug. 9 event:
“Melissa Etheridge’s questions “veer[ed] the debate into the slightly narcissistic — and decidedly unjournalistic — territory of Los Angeles celebrity.”
Ben Smith of ThePolitico.com
“Obama: OK, but not riveting; Edwards: Slick, smarmy, insincere. Disappointing; Kucinich: Amazing. Strong. Smart. Super-likeable; Gravel: Wacky, but loveable. Unelectable; Richardson: Horrible. Soporific. Highly un-likeable; Clinton: Same-old, same-old. Pre-programmed.”
Joe Jervis of JoeMyGod.blogspot.com
“When Edwards acknowledged that he should not have used his faith as a justification for his opposition to same-sex marriage, he left a gaping hole for questions to probe. If it’s not your faith that prevents you from accepting marriage equality, then what is it, Senator?”
Keith Boykin of keithboykin.com
“How long could you listen to the whole baby step mentality about your civil rights from those candidates who could get elected? There was black Obama so proud to have marched in memory of Selma still endorsing ‘separate but equal’ for gays. And Edwards who loves those picket lines, still beating his breast over gay marriage which he will not endorse. Nice people, well meaning. And at bottom so hurtful.”
Lin Smith of the Huffington Post
“An even bigger faux pas, if you can call it that, was Clinton’s reassertion that it should be up to the state to decide who can marry. This is simply not acceptable, given the history of bigotry legislated at the state level.”
Pam Spaulding of PamsHouseBlend.com
“She’s not my girl.”
GayPatriot.org
“Bill Richardson made a big mistake when he said homosexuality is a ‘choice,’ and it could be a Disaster with a capital ‘D’ for his candidacy. They gave him several chances to correct himself, but he didn’t. This is too bad because, as he articulated, he’s been among the most progressive governors on GLBT issues.”
Michelangelo Signorile
“If you’re for civil unions but not civil marriage, you need an argument. One is simply the semantic one that your commitment to the heterosexual meaning of the word trumps your understanding that gays are also family members and deserve not to be shunted into a ‘separate-but-equal’ institution. But none of them will admit that.”
Andrew Sullivan, andrewsullivan.com
“My fear is that all we really experienced last night was a lot of preaching to a very well-dressed choir. As for the rest of America, well this was not CNN or ABC. It was Logo and how many of the voters who need to be influenced were tuned in? Straight America will hear the Fox view of what occurred but will never be exposed to the substance.”
Richard Rothstein, Queersighted.com |
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: LOU CHIBBARO J COMMENTS
 
The potential impact of same-sex marriage on the 2008 presidential election loomed over last week’s gay presidential candidates’ forum in Los Angeles, even as the event’s status as a groundbreaking development in a U.S. presidential election captured most of the attention of the mainstream media.
The nation’s political establishment appeared to take note of the fact that six of the eight Democratic presidential contenders, including frontrunners Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, agreed to take part in a forum dedicated to gay issues.
“It was an extraordinary validation of how far we have come,” said David Mixner, a gay Democratic Party fundraiser and activist. Mixner was among the first to organize efforts to raise money in the gay community for presidential candidates beginning in the 1970s.
“People would not even accept our checks,” Mixner said of gay political groups courting presidential campaigns in the earlier years. “In 1992, one of the big issues was whether Bill Clinton would say the word ‘gay’ at the Democratic convention,” he said.
Sponsored jointly by gay cable TV channel Logo and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, a national gay group, last week’s forum marked the first time leading presidential candidates of a major political party appeared for a live televised event aimed at a gay audience. At least that’s how Logo’s publicists billed the event.
HRC sponsored a similar gay presidential forum four years ago, which was taped and later televised by C-SPAN. But activists said last week’s forum appeared to attract far more media attention, even if the Logo channel audience might have been smaller than C-SPAN’s.
While activists reveled over the extent to which Democratic presidential candidates are reaching out to gay voters this year, Democratic Party strategists and their Republican rivals most likely watched with great interest as the panelists asking questions at the HRC-Logo forum repeatedly pressed the candidates on the topic of same-sex marriage.
As expected, Clinton, Obama, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico reiterated their opposition to same-sex marriage and pointed to their strong support for civil unions as an alternative for same-sex couples. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska, who trail in the polls and appear to have little chance of winning, reiterated their longstanding support for same-sex marriage, saying they were the only ones backing “full” equality for gays.
Then, in a development that could have repercussions in next year’s general election against the Republican nominee, Edwards, Obama and Richardson added a new wrinkle to the gay marriage discussion this year by saying they favor repealing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.
Although legal experts disagree, some have argued that DOMA’s provision allowing states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states is the only safeguard, other than a constitutional amendment, that prevents all states from being forced to recognize gay marriages in Massachusetts under the U.S. Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause.
Clinton took a more cautious position at the forum, citing her decision earlier this year to call for repeal of just Section 3 of DOMA, which defines marriage under federal law as a union only between a man and a woman. The section effectively prevents same-sex couples joined in civil unions or marriages conferred by a state from receiving any of the 1,100 marriage-related federal rights or benefits, such as Social Security survivor payments and various tax breaks.
All of the Democratic presidential contenders have said they want couples joined in civil unions to receive all of the federal rights and benefits that straight married couples receive. But none of the candidates so far has stated how he or she would do that, given existing federal law, in addition to DOMA, would not allow same-sex couples to receive those rights or benefits.
HRC President Joe Solmonese said this week that HRC is reviewing the best way to recommend how that could be brought about, including possible legislation beyond pending bills in Congress calling for granting tax breaks and health benefits for partners of gay federal workers.
Edwards, Obama and Richardson — who say they do not support gay marriage — would likely argue their call for repealing DOMA was not intended to force states such as Mississippi or North Carolina to treat gay couples married in Massachusetts as being married in their own states. Most ...
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