Speaking of records- Bill Clinton signed into law DOMA- the "Defense of Marriage Act"

[Guaranteed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act

A mighty step back in the continuing fight for equal rights for all Americans.

What strong, courageous leadership on his part, as President of the United States. :eyes:

[Windy]

1. OH no, that had nothing to do with Hillary.... Bill enacted it

Funny, HRC wants to grab on to what was good in bills records and run from what was bad...

DOMA and NAFTA...

[KennedyGuy]

2. As I recall..Bill never tried to "cure" me..or embrace those who did.

[Guaranteed]

4. No, he just cut the legs out from under your Constitutional right

to marry the person you want to. Is all.

Hard to believe you give him a pass on this one.

[CTLawGuy]

6. no he just didn't want you to ever have equal rights

even if a state decided to give them to you.

[KennedyGuy]

12. No...the Clintons are all for civil unions..

who gives a fig about the religious ceremony of marriage..
its about state recognition..not church..and the Clintons have always supported civil unions.

[CTLawGuy]

16. so is Obama

he's for civil unions, and he's for full repeal of DOMA (and hillary is not), not that you care, becuase the game you are making him play is one he can never win. and I'm ok with that.

[KennedyGuy]

19. Obama has a big Donnie problem

and if Hillary campaigned with Donnie..I'd say the same thing.

[CTLawGuy]

24. he's one guy

and Obama explicitly said he didn't agree with his views.

but if that's enough for you to equate Obama with Satan, then that's your prerogative.

[KennedyGuy]

25. I never did anything of the kind..

you can't appear on stage with someone..then say you don't agree with them after they have served your purpose.
he still has not disavowed this..

[CTLawGuy]

31. well he said it beforehand

also Obama has spoken in black churches about the need for the community to confront its own homophobia.

[KennedyGuy]

34. he still shared the stage with the man...

that kinda suggests he agrees with his views...

[Guaranteed]

35. That doesn't mean he would do something as bad as signing DOMA. nt

[KennedyGuy]

36. DOMA isn't the issue

rights are..

[Guaranteed]

37. Restricting your rights is exactly what DOMA did.

It took the Full Faith and Credit Clause away from you, and actually FORBADE the federal government from giving you any rights as the result of being married to a person of the same sex.

[mondo joe]

38. But DOMA bought time, prevented a constitutional ban.

Ugly as it was, the alternative would have been worse.

[Guaranteed]

39. The "alternative," as you call it, would not have happened at all with minimal effort

on the part of our President.

Seriously- STOP making excuses.

[mondo joe]

42. That's speculation. I take my rights - and the infringement on them - seriously.

I'm serious about my rights and the impact of this on my family and friends.

[Guaranteed]

44. Well, sometimes I wonder about that, because I'm reminded

of working class people who vote Republican by the behavior around here sometimes.

I mean, look at the link and what he did- as our PRESIDENT. And don't act like a Constitutional Amendment, of all things, was an inevitability.

What else do you need?

Because, of course, there IS more, which I'm sure you're also aware of.

[mondo joe]

45. I take my rights seriously, and the impact on my family and friends is very real.

I'm quite willing to respect that good people can sincerely disagree, without either party being in the wrong.

If you wish to suggest that you are somehow taking my rights and my family more seriously than I am, it would be both disrespectful and erroneous.

I'll hope that wasn't your intent.

[Guaranteed]

46. ....

No, of course I understand that the effect of things like DOMA on you and those close to you is quite real. I know you care.

But I invite you not to let these fucking people get away with shit like this. I've read your posts for a long time, and I've never seen much support for triangulation from you, especially when the chips are down, when it's time to make real decisions that affect peoples' lives. Don't start now.

[mondo joe]

48. I can only tell you that I coul have easily been for Obama. He lost me with

McClurkin, and he compounded it with Kirbyjon.

I don't believe he'll be better for my family and friends than Clinton.

If he gets the nomination - and at this point I think he will - I'll vote for him. I've held my nose and pulled the lever, and can do it again.

My choice in who I support is always based on a lot of things - but one significant factor is always what it means for my partner and my kids. I'm where I am now in this campaign because of that.

[Guaranteed]

50. Well, if it's any consolation, I'd bet that the McClurkin's and the Kirbyjon's

won't be getting much face-to-face time with Obama if he makes it to the White House.

[Ken Burch]

54. I constitutional ban would never have cleared three-fourths of the state legislatures

And even if it had, constitutional bans can be overturned(we don't have Prohibition anymore, do we?)

Nothing was gained through DOMA. It wasn't a middle ground and no GLBT person in the whole country accepts that he or she was protected by Clinton's acquiescence in it.

[KennedyGuy]

40. the only right it restricted was the right to a religious ceremony

which I don't give a fig about...
the term "Marriage" is meaningless..
I live this life..I know what is important to me..

[Guaranteed]

41. Did you look at link?

I'm afraid it was a lot more than that.

Gay couples, having been married in one state, could have gone into the courts of other states and forced recognition and the RIGHTS given them in other states through the Full Faith and Credit Clause. This statute prevents that.

Further, this statute entirely prohibits the federal government from giving the same rights and benefits to gay couples as they do to married couples. You don't see that as a problem?

[mondo joe]

43. That's not true. It prevents federal recognition of civil marriage.

So the same sex couples in Massachusetts who are married have no federal recognition.

[Ken Burch]

55. You lose the right to say you're for gay rights forever if you accepted DOMA.

Nobody who voted for it has been on the good side of gay issues since.

[okasha]

51. I sincerely hope he would have signed DOMA

if the alternative were the introduction of a Constitutional Amendment to ban same-sex marriage across the entire country. DOMA can be repealed by Congress or overturned by the SCOTUS. A Consitutional amendment would require a second amendment to undo it.

Bill Clinton signed DOMA knowing that its repudiation of the Full Faith and Credit Clause is a ticking time-bomb that will eventually destroy it. In fact, a decision has just been handed down in NY that the state must recognize same-sex Canadian marriages. The implications of that decision mean that DOMA has started its swirl down the drain.

[alteredstate]

49. He didn't share the stage with him.

[Ken Burch]

53. One nutjob at a rally is worse than DOMA?

And to put the "civil unions" thing in perspective, how would you expect the civil rights movement to react if a "moderate" Dem in the 60's had proposed "interracial civil unions" instead of lifting the ban on interracial marriage?

[Critters2]

18. DOMA wasn't about the religious ceremony.

The Constitution has no say over religious ceremonies. Clergy can do gay marriages now. I do them all the time. My church recognizes them, and the people who participate as "married". But, because of DOMA, none of the legal benefits of marriage come along with the services where I officiate. And this is Bill Clinton's fault.

[alteredstate]

15. Signing the DOMA into law is significant

and Bill is half of the Hillary and Bill for President team.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

3. I'm sure someone will be along to claim that she tried to talk him out of it. Just like NAFTA. nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. doma was passed to stop a measure that would make a constitutional amendment to define

marriage as between one man and one woman. i think people have forgotten the fucking context of doma.

[Guaranteed]

7. Which shouldn't have been done, either.

And WON'T be done, now that we have Democratic leaders with the courage to actually stand up against it.

Pure capitulation.

Don't act like there's an excuse, because there isn't.

[okasha]

52. Geez, I just love straight concern trolls

who try to tell me they know what's best for me. :eyes:

If you really give a damn about LGBT rights, do what you can to pry Obama loose from genocidal homophobes like McCLurkin and Caldwell. After he's "gotten what he wanted out of them," of course.

[CTLawGuy]

9. That's the Neville Chamberlain strategy

give Hitler Czeckoslovakia and then he'll be happy... and won't try to take over any more countries.

[Evergreen Emerald]

47. I know! Every thing Clinton did was for civil rights, and tried as he might

his attempts were continuously thwarted by the right. Today, you can glean a bit of what occurred in the Clinton era by looking at the Senate and how there is no compromise with the republicans.

And despite that--Clinton got stuff done. Look at DOMA in the context of the era.

Good God.

[tritsofme]

8. It passed 342-67 in the House and 85-14 in the Senate.

The failure was a united effort.

[Guaranteed]

11. He signed it.

He had the SOLE EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY. And he fucking signed it.

[tritsofme]

13. With a lopsided vote like that, the president's signature is irrelevant.

nt

[Guaranteed]

17. No, it's not. Even if a veto could have been overridden, he stamped

his approval on the policy.

In fact, your argument just means that he had every reason to go ahead and do what was right by opposing it, since it probably would have made no difference in the outcome.

Leadership. Leadership. Leadership.

[mondo joe]

20. GLBT people are accustomed to ugly politica compromise.

We're also accustomed to living with the lesser of two evils.

[tritsofme]

23. Clinton's leadership at that time probably stopped a constitutional amendment.

Banning marriage equality.

It would have been much easier for them to pull off back in 1996.

It was a compromise that needs to be viewed in context.

[Guaranteed]

27. No, real leadership would have stopped a constitutional amendment

not through capitulation but by rallying those who would work against it.

An amendment would have taken ratification by 38 states. You don't think we could have found 13 states to oppose it?

Hawaii would have been one. Plus, how many states are there in New England?

Then there's the West Coast, Illinois and the northern states.

Don't think we could have stopped it? Bullshit.

[karynnj]

56. It is very hard to get a constitutial amendment

It takes years to pass in sufficient states and this didn't have enough support.

[Deja Q]

10. DOMA is one thing. Promoting civil unions is another.

I wonder why he didn't go for the latter and save any number of pedantic firefights...

It may be barbaric, but each religion can do what it wants. I ain't the pope...

BTW: Wellstone was for DOMA too. He was said to otherwise be GLBT-friendly. Maybe they both understood the difference between civil unions and religious practices...

I mean, we otherwise get angry when DMV stations demand Arab women remove their burqas, right? Wait, that means we're interfering in someone's religion. Oops.

It's a funny ol' world...

[MH1]

28. DOMA denies civil unions with respect to partner benefits

for example for programs like social security.

It goes beyond religion.

(fwiw I am okay with keeping the word "marriage" for religious ceremony and letting the religion decide. But when it prevents partnership benefits or similar rights...then it's not a "civil union with equivalent rights of marriage.")

[maddiejoan]

14. Kept the Constitutional Ban off the table

and is the reason we can even see Constitutional lawsuits about same-sex marriage.

Maybe you should research WHY DOMA was even an issue.

It starts with the backlash from the GOP about a series of marriages in Hawaii in 1996.
The GOP was hungry to force an amendment through to BAN gay marriage.

DOMA obviated the need for this ban, got the wolves from drooling --and because it is "bad law", made it possible for lawsuits under the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

Did it suck? You bet.

Was it better than what could have been rammed through? You bet. If a Constitutional Ban in the form of an amendment is ever put through --the ball game will be over.

[Guaranteed]

21. Maybe he should have- as the leader of our party and as the PRESIDENT

of our freaking country, rallied support for those gays and lesbians who NEEDED it.

Do you know how difficult it is to amend the Constitution? You don't think we could have stopped it?

The President has a tremendous amount of power. Look at how effective Chimpy is despite his lack of intelligence and support from the American people and bad policies. Clinton just didn't have the gumption to do what it took.

[maddiejoan]

26. apparently you don't recall

what life was like a short 10 years ago.

[mondo joe]

30. It was a no win situation. I loathe that it happened.

But I don't particularly hold it against Bill Clinton who I don't believe would have chosen it.

[Guaranteed]

32. He did choose it. He signed it, dude, pressured or not. nt

[mondo joe]

33. He wouldn't have chosen to be in a no win situation.

I don't hold it against him that he was forced into the situation, and I don't know that another choice would have ended up better.

[ruggerson]

22. Is your marriage personally affected by DOMA?

or are you just using this as a political club against the Clintons?

[Neecy]

29. DOMA was a complete betrayal

He pandered to the right wing and sold his (former) supporters completely out.

He could have spoken against it and tried to lead the country. He said not a word...not a whimper...and he didn't claim a single reservation about the legislation when he signed it.

And remember - he also advised Kerry to come out against gay marriage in 2004. This is where this guy is at - we're an easy target to sell out for political gain. And I campaigned for him, gave him money, voted for him, and totally supported him until DOMA. I don't want him advising a President Hillary on gay issues - not for one goddamn second.

[ForRusty]

57. You guys forget something about DOMA. INC HISTORY LESSON!

Ok. So the Hawaii Supreme Court basically rules in favor of gay marriage and guess what? The Hawaii people are like, " Hell to the hell to the no! " they amend their constitution and suddenly there is a real prospect that the House and Senate, both being controlled by Republicans at that time, could actually get a constitutional amendment to pass which, we all know, would have been ratified.

So... Get this. They compromise! They make a law and sign it into the books. Does it suck? Absolutely. Know what sucks more? Having to overturn a constitutional amendment. That fucking blows.

Now I'm going to say something here that rifle peoples feathers. Most of you touting this stuff to Clinton leaning GLBT or fair minded people know this... If you don't, a little effort would do well to study the things you pretend to be knowledgable on. This sucked, but it was necessary.

Politics= compromise. While you people keep roaring about hope, some of us will face reality instead.

- ForRusty!

[in_cog_ni_to]

58. They're not from the reality based community.

I guess you noticed! Welcome to DU, btw!:hi:

[ForRusty]

60. Hi there. :) Long time lurker here. nt

[alteredstate]

59. kicked.