Bill Clinton and More Gays

Bill Clinton Backs Gay Marriage

International News, By Joal, 29th September, 2009

Community views on same-sex marriage are slowly changing, and so is the stance of one prominent individual – former US president Bill Clinton.

In an interview with CNN’s openly gay Anderson Cooper, Clinton spoke about changing has mind. Clinton says that while he did not support same-sex marriage in the past, he always supported the rights of gay individuals and gay adoption and recently began to see the contradiction.

“I grew up at a different time… I had all these gay friends. I had all these gay couple friends. And I decided I was wrong,” says Clinton in the interview.

The former president, now over 60-years-old, says he began to realise that he was just caught up on a word. “If gay couples want to call their union marriage…then I don’t think the rest of us should get in the way of that. I think it’s a good thing, not a bad thing,” Clinton says.

It’s quite a big turn-around for the former president, considering he signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 – a law that effectively federally banned same-sex marriage.

Some commentators suggest that the Clinton still in politics needs to publicly support same-sex marriage. Hillary Clinton, wife of Bill and United States Secretary of State, also supported the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, but has since see-sawed in her stance on gay marriage. In 2006 Hillary told 365gay.com,”I believe in full equality of benefits, nothing left out. From my perspective there is a greater likelihood of us getting to that point in civil unions or domestic partnerships and that is my very considered assessment.”