Hillary Clinton just ended one of the best weeks of her political life by confidently presenting herself as presidential during the first Democratic debate and handily testifying before a House committee on the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya. So why would she choose to undermine herself by attempting to rewrite the history of the Defense of Marriage Act on her recent appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show?
Apparently, Clinton is not hewing to the "quit while you're ahead" strategy in her effort to buttress support among LGBT voters. Instead, she's pissing a lot of them off. And we're talking about the movers and shakers in the LGBT community, those who used to work in her husband's administration, and leaders in the marriage equality and other movements. Universally, they have tweeted or made comments that Clinton was off base in her DOMA telling.
During last Friday's appearance with Maddow, a lesbian who was involved in activist work here in the Bay Area, Clinton said that DOMA was a means to stop something worse, namely a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. But back in 1996, when DOMA was signed by President Bill Clinton, the debate wasn't about a federal marriage amendment. Rather, the political fight was focused on Hawaii, where a same-sex marriage case was making its way through the courts. Anti-gay politicians were afraid that if the state Supreme Court allowed same-sex marriage there, then other states would be forced to recognize those nuptials. As it turns out, the Hawaii court case was unsuccessful, and later, in 2004, the first state to legalize same-sex marriage was Massachusetts.
Here's the point: Clinton doesn't need to revise history on DOMA. The U.S. Supreme Court tossed its key provision in 2013 and this year the high court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Clinton herself came on board to support same-sex marriage in 2013. Bill Clinton, in March 2013, finally disavowed the law he signed in September 1996 at the height of his re-election campaign when he urged that the law be overturned, according to a New York Times story at the time.
The Washington Blade, in a story on the controversy this week, reported, "Nowhere in Bill Clinton's 1996 signing statement of DOMA does he say anything explicit about him agreeing to the legislation to stop a Federal Marriage Amendment. Instead, the former president talked about a state's right to set its own policy on same-sex marriage, urged passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and maintained DOMA shouldn't 'provide an excuse for discrimination, violence or intimidation against any person on the basis of sexual orientation.'"
Of course, we all know that the states' rights argument is usually a way of continuing prejudice and discrimination. It was the crutch Southern states clung to to counter the civil rights movement. But that's what DOMA was about: using the states' rights argument to settle on DOMA as a compromise.
For her presidential campaign, Clinton needs to look ahead, not behind. Instead of reviving the history of DOMA, which is a widely acknowledged low point of Bill Clinton's legacy, she and her crack team should be talking about equality for all, especially in regard to employment, housing, and public accommodations. Next week in Houston, for example, voters could decide to undo a local LGBT non-discrimination law. The campaign is eerily reminiscent of the ugly fight over California's marriage law, Proposition 8, in 2008. Houston may be in a red state, but it's the fourth largest city in the country and home to a number of large companies so this would be a terrible setback.
An issue that needs attention is the rash of transgender women who have been killed this year �" at least 21 have been documented so far. The last couple of years have had an uptick in anti-trans violence, whether it's related to "trans panic," domestic violence, or random violence.
The fight for equality didn't end when we achieved marriage. Clinton does a disservice to herself and to the LGBT community by trying to spin past issues to her benefit. It's time to move on.