Hillary Clinton's Marriage Evolution Is Hardly the Point
Joe Solmonese is a former president of the Human Rights Campaign. In this 2014 op-ed, Solmonese says we should judge actions over "changes of heart" or the "politically expedient". Solmonese states that "there can be no debate" that President Obama's actions "made enormous contributions to the greatest period of progress the LGBT community has ever experienced".
Similarly, we would do well to evaluate the potential candidacy of Hillary Clinton in the same way — not just by her words, but also by her actions. And to date, the actions she has taken on our issues have been extraordinary.
I first met Hillary Clinton when she was a senator and we were embroiled in a second fight to defeat an amendment to the U.S. Constitution barring marriage equality nationwide. She not only took a leadership role, she called me to her office several times to strategize about how we could win the Senate by a bigger margin than the first time, thereby minimizing future attacks on our community. To her, it was critical to not only boost the numbers but win Republican support so the media would see clear momentum and our opponents would see that targeting us would bring real repercussions at the ballot box.
It was — just as she envisioned it — a victory that had staying power. And we wouldn’t have gotten there without her leadership.
When President Obama took office he was presented with dozens of LGBT proposals. The Department of State under Hillary enacted most of them. Additionally, same-sex domestic partners benefits, transgender equal opportunity, and also making it easier to change name or sex on passports.
The most powerful thing Solmonese writes, in my opinion, happened in 2011. He was invited to travel with Hillary to Geneva to celebrate the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Also attending were
...activists from nearly 20 of the world’s most difficult countries for LGBT citizens. I was seated between leaders from the African nations of Cameroon and Uganda.
Toward the end of her speech, Adrian Jjuuko, an activist from Uganda, whispered, “Everything will change now. Slowly, very slowly, everything will start to change.” And to my right, Alice Nkom, a lawyer and advocate from Cameroon, simply said, “This will make it much more difficult for them to kill me now.”
What should be the focus?
...the much-needed unfinished business of our movement, and how any candidate, including those for president, envisions a pathway to full equality in every aspect of our lives.