In Hillary Clinton's disturbing attempt to rebrand herself as a Bible-totin', gun-slinging Annie Oakley, complete with right-wing talking points, I guess it's not surprising that gays would end up with the short end of the stick in Camp Clinton these days. Hillary has given lip service to supporting GLBT rights, but her actions over the past few months - not to mention the past few decades - have shown that Hillary is not only trying to distance herself from the gay community and GLBT issues but has done her best to use anti-gay sentiment to her advantage. There's a disturbing pattern at work here, folks, that should outrage any true Democrat who cares about equality.
As a gay man who has fought hard for GLBT rights my entire life, I am frankly a bit mystified by the conventional wisdom I have heard over that past few months that the GLBT community is more strongly behind Hillary than Obama. I have not seen any hard numbers to back up that claim, and I certainly have not seen that play out in my own life. Most of the gay folks I know can't stand Hillary.) And Hillary's conduct in this campaign certainly give me cause for concern.
As I've written before, on paper Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are pretty much equal in terms of their support for GLBT rights. The Human Rights Campaign's latest congressional scorecard, for the 109th Congress, gave Clinton and Obama an identical rating of 89 (out of 100). Obama and Clinton are also equal on the Human Rights Campaign's report card on where the candidates stand on key issues of concern to the GLBT community.
The only substantive difference between the two candidates on GLBT issues, on paper anyway, is that Obama supports a full repeal of the odious Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), but Hillary supports only a partial repeal of DOMA. Hillary would only repeal that part of DOMA that bans federal recognition of same-sex marriage, but would leave in place the portion of DOMA that allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.
The Washington Blade, the nation's premier gay newspaper, explained that this difference on DOMA is not substantial in terms of practical impact, but it is huge in terms of getting a sense of how the Clintons view GLBT issues the same way they view everything else: in terms of how it impacts their political fortunes:
Even without DOMA, states may refuse to recognize gay marriages from other states. All but five have done so. Still, the interstate provision in DOMA discriminates against gay couples and should be repealed.
Clinton defends her position by saying that DOMA was a valuable political tool in defeating a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. That’s doubtful. She even goes so far as to say that DOMA was originally passed as a way to head off a federal amendment. That’s dishonest. When her husband championed DOMA in 1996 it was not as a favor to gays, but as a way to maximize his chances for reelection.
This is typical Clintonian triangulation and "compromise" to me, and offers a clue as to what we could expect from a Hillary presidency in terms of gay rights: in other words, not much.
Setting aside the fact that Bill Clinton's presidency brought us two of the worst pieces of anti-gay federal legislation this country has ever seen: Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act - with nary a peep of protest from Hillary - Hillary's own actions during this campaign should give pause to anyone who cares about GLBT rights.
For starters, as John Aravosis at AmericaBlog has pointed out, Obama keeps mentioning gays and lesbians and gay rights in his speeches - speeches he makes to the public at large, not just gay audiences - but Hillary never does. As the Washington Blade noted:
Obama speaks movingly of gay equality, and not just before gay audiences. He has raised the issue among white farmers and in black churches, where the message is both unwelcome and needed. Clinton, by contrast, rarely raises the issue on her own, never does so before unfriendly audiences, and seems reluctant even to say the word "gay."
Even in front of a gay-friendly audience, Hillary seems afraid to use the word "gay" (and you can forget about using the word "lesbian.") For example, Americablog tallied up the number of times Obama and Hillary used gay-related words at the gay-friendly LOGO gay forum for Dem candidates last August:
Obama: 7 gay, 5 lgbt, 3 lesbian (15 total)
Clinton: 2 gay, 1 lgbt, 0 lesbian (3 total)
If you need even more proof of Hillary's reluctance to use the word "gay," watch this interview she gave to LOGO, the gay cable network. She uses the word "gay" exactly one time during an entire five-minute interview, and she repeatedly hesitates and stumbles at places where you would naturally expect her to say the word "gay" - but she doesn't.
Check out this particularly troubling part of the interview, about one minute in, where Hillary is visibly uncomfortable and does her best to not use the word "gay" - ironically, in response to a question abut why she never mentions gay rights!:
1:02 LOGO: "Your opponent, Senator Obama, regularly mentions gay people in his stump speech... You don't mention gay rights all the time in your stump speech, you do when you're in front of gay audiences, why is that?"
1:21 CLINTON: "Well I do mention, uh, from time to time, um, you know I don't mention, you know, everything in every speech that I give, but uh people, you know, know how committed I am and they know what I've done, and that I led the efforts uh to try and defeat the Federal Marriage Amendment, working with you know all of the major uh gay rights organizations, uh, so you know I'm gonna continue to not just talk about what I will do but demonstrate by my actions what I have done and will do."
Exactly why is Hillary afraid of any video footage floating around that shows her uttering the word "gay"??? Inquiring minds want to know.
Also disturbing to me is how Hillary and her campaign have made repeated derisive comments about San Francisco - we all know what THAT means. For decades, gay folks have known that San Francisco has been used as an anti-gay code word. Gay columnist Michelangelo Signorile provided a good summary of the history of using San Francisco as an anti-gay code word in a column from 2002. He notes that the term "San Francisco Democrat" (which is more or less interchangeable with "San Francisco liberal") was first used by former UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick in a speech at the 1984 Republican Convention and the right-wing honed the term as an anti-gay slur by Republican Senate candidate Linda Chavez in 1986:
It was 3000 miles from San Francisco, in the Senate race in Maryland in 1986, when "San Francisco Democrat" was perfected as a political gay-baiting tool by none other than Linda Chavez...
- snip -
Early in the campaign, Chavez explained that because she was married and a mother, unlike her unmarried opponent, she was more in touch with Maryland voters, and began railing against Mikulski as a "San Francisco-style Democrat" who should come "out of the closet."
- snip -
Despite Chavez’s brutal defeat, the trial balloon for the code word "San Francisco Democrat" did nonetheless prove successful as an intimidation tactic. It scared the daylights out of Mikulski and put her on the defensive, in ways that were at times degrading. She spent the final two weeks of the campaign flirting with men and even asked one out on a date in front of reporters, according to Maureen Dowd, then a reporter covering the campaign for The New York Times. Some gay activists even believe that the gay-baiting caused Mikulski to become fearful of gay issues for many years—perhaps inspiring her to vote for the antigay Defense of Marriage Act, lest anyone use the issue of homosexual marriage against her again.
Since that time, the Republicans have used "San Francisco" as an anti-gay code word against Democrats with tremendous consistency. So how deeply sad that Hillary Clinton is now borrowing from the right-wing playbook. Aravosis has done a great job of summarizing the numerous negative, wink-wink, nod-nod references to San Francisco by Hillary and her campaign. Check out this endorsement on Hillary's website:
"Sen. Obama showed a real disconnect with rural Montana. It might work to look down on us from San Francisco, but it won’t sell when he comes back to Montana."
The San Francisco Chronicle summed it up nicely:
So the most shocking part of the whole incident, he said, has been the appearance that "Hillary Clinton wants to ... throw in with the critique from the far right" in appearing to feed the image of an out-of-touch "San Francisco-style Democrat."
It suggests "that the Clintons are so committed to the political tactics that they'll do virtually anything to advance a step without regard for the long term implications," he said. "Most Democrats and most Republicans will not attack their opponent in such a way as to give massive fodder to the other side in the general election."
But "she's just writing the playbook for the Republicans in November ... up until this point, Obama hasn't done that," he said. "That's the difference."
The latest chapter in Hillary's anti-gay hit parade came yesterday in North Carolina, when Gov. Mike Easley described Hillary as someone who "makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy", as Hillary stood by smiling and laughing. Webster's dictionary describes "pansy" as an anti-gay slur, and I immediately interpreted it that way as well. It's not a word that's used a lot by the younger generation, but it's a clear dog-whistle for people of my parent's generation (similar to how our generation uses the word "fag" in a derogatory way to refer to gay people). I have not heard Hillary reject or denounce this comment, and I'm not holding by breath. Neither is Andrew Belonsky, editor of the gay blog Queerty, who is not happy:
"Considering the Senator’s silence, we get the impression that she simply doesn’t care," (Belonsky) wrote. "And this is a gay ally?"
Out-and-proud Pam Spauding over at Pam's House Blend described Easley's comment as "tacky gay-baiting." She noted that Hillary is clearly trying to use anti-gay tactics to win over the Bubba vote: "Take the homo money and run, as it were."
Andrew Sullivan echoes these sentiments, noting that Hillary (and hubby Bill) will never miss a chance to take gay support for granted on the one hand while throwing us under the bus with the other hand, if it helps her out politically:
She's on O'Reilly and her surrogate is accusing her opponent of being a "pansy". Classy - but vintage Clinton. Never miss an opportunity to exploit homophobia. Remember DOMA? Remember doubling the discharges from the military? Remember inaction on AIDS? Remember the Clintons' using anti-gay marriage ads in the South in 1996? And yet the gays keep coming back for more. I don't understand why. I really don't.
Well, this gay will never come back for more ever again. Hillary's divisive race-baiting tactics alone were enough to ensure that I would never vote for her for anything, not even dog-catcher. And her gay-baiting tactics have now put her right up there with George W. Bush on the list of politicians that I can't even stand to look at. And this coming from a true blue Democrat. Nice going Hillary.
UPDATE:
This diary is about much more than just "pansy-gate," but I'd like to point out that some key national gay rights groups have just gone on the record regarding Easley's comment:
Here's a statement from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD):
"GLAAD is concerned with Gov. Easley's flippant comment this morning utilizing the word "pansy,‘" said GLAAD President Neil G. Giuliano. "The word is considered by many to be a demeaning and degrading reference to gay men. We encourage all those engaging in political rhetoric to stay away from using language that is considered defamatory toward any group of Americans."
Also, the LA Times blog reports the following from the Human Rights Campaign:
We checked with the Washington headquarters of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's premier group promoting gay rights, and it already had a statement in the works.
Trevor Thomas, the group's deputy communications director, sent out this e-mail a few minutes later: "We certainly wish the governor would have chosen his words better and have expressed our disappointment to his staff."
So far, neither group has called out Hillary for smiling and laughing at Easley's "pansy" statement or has called for her to renounce and reject his comment. Not surprisingly, the LA Times notes that so far Hillary is mum on the entire incident:
We've asked the Clinton campaign for a comment but, as of now, nothing has been issued.