Newsmakers of the Year

 Hillary Clinton

President Obama has presided over an astounding gay civil rights milestone this year. But it hasn’t made us forget about one of the fiercest advocates working in the executive branch today: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who declared in a 2010 pride speech that “gay rights are human rights,” who has pushed tirelessly to secure benefits for gay State Department employees, who wore purple on the October 20 remembrance day for gay teens lost to suicide, and who recorded an “It Gets Better” video before it became nearly de rigueur for other high-ranking, like-minded officials.