Sen. Hillary
Clinton, addressing a gathering of LGBT organizations
Thursday, said that she "has certainly evolved" on gay
issues, Gay City News reported.
Clinton spoke
following Wednesday's New Jersey supreme court ruling that
same-sex couples are entitled to the same marriage rights as
heterosexuals. She also confirmed support for gubernatorial
front-runner Eliot Spitzer, a strong backer of
marriage equality.
"My position is
consistent. I support states making the decision,"
Clinton said. "And if anyone ever tried to use our
words in any way, we'll review that. Because I think that it
should be in the political process and people make a
decision, and if our governor and our legislature
support marriage in New York, I'm not going to be against
that.
"So I feel very
comfortable with being able to refute anybody who
tries to pit us or pit me against Eliot. I am not going to
speak out against, I'm not going to oppose anything
that the governor and the legislature do."
However, Clinton
said, getting the public to accept the term "gay
marriage" will be especially difficult. "If you go the next
step and say, 'But I want what is called marriage,'
you're going to have a problem."
Clinton explained
that her decision not to defend same-sex marriage
protection on a federal level was a strategic one and said,
"Very few Democrats spoke, because maybe you thought
one way, which is that you want people out there
speaking for us. We thought...force the Republicans
out there, make them look like they're trying to enshrine
discrimination in the Constitution. We don't even want
to dignify it."
Clinton also
slammed the Bush administration, saying, "They put Nixon
to shame." (Hassan Mirza, Gay.com/U.K.)
