Angela Giampolo

Hillary Clinton's LGBT Record
Mar 29, 2008

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Angela Giampolo Angela, a United States native, grew up in a small, northern Quebec town called St. Georges de Champlain. She has spent the last nine years living in Philadelphia, a place she now, in addition to Montreal, calls home. Angela obtained her undergraduate degree from La Salle University and after several years of work attended Temple University, Beasley School of Law. During her time in law school, Angela earned a Certificate in Chinese Law from Tsinghua University in Bejing and also worked in Arusha, Tanzania for the United Nations at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She aims to be an "untraditional attorney serving an untraditional community". Angela specializes in Business, Corporate and Real Estate transactions, as well as Estate Planning and Adoptions. Angela is also a Board Member and Fund-Raising Co-Chair of the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund, a philanthropic gay organization that engages in capacity building for LGBT organizations in the area. For more local political information check out: angelagiampolo@yahoo.com Other Columns by Angela Giampolo - The People Have Spoken - That Answers That – In a Roundabout Way!

With the April 22nd Primaries quickly approaching, Pennsylvania is buzzing. While I’ll be featuring columns on Hillary Clinton leading up to the primaries, regardless of who becomes our president, I am ecstatic that the apathy shrouding this country for the last two terms is lifting and people are engaged in politics again. People care again. People are passionate again.

Now, I’ve been a Hillary Clinton fan as long as I can remember. I have her autobiography on VHS somewhere (yes, it’s that old!), I’ve read her book a few times and I have her infamous Wellesley valedictorian speech engrained in my mind. That being said, I don’t support Hillary because she is a woman. I support her because she is a notable individual who has effected change through her roles as an attorney, First Lady and Senator.

As president, Hillary will work with the LGBT community and allies in Congress to change discriminatory laws, not merely empathize with how unfair they are. The following is Hillary Clinton’s “gay agenda” so to speak; her LGBT platform. The latter is merely a recitation of her prior record on some LGBT issues, current fights she is engaged in and future promises she has made.

• Hillary is sensitive to and appalled by the fact that, in states like Pennsylvania, people can still be fired because of who they are or who they love. She supports, and was an original co-sponsor of ENDA, and aims to put an end to the blatant employment discrimination that still runs rampant across the United States.
  
  
• Hillary supports the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. She acknowledges that hate crimes undermine the fundamental principle upon which our nation was founded, that all men and women are equal.
  
  
• Hillary supports civil unions, not gay marriages, and will work to ensure that all Americans in committed relationships have equal benefits, gay or straight, from health insurance to life insurance and the many more (give or take 1,038) rights we struggle without. Doing so will mean amending the Defense of Marriage Act, which was ironically bestowed upon us by the “other” Clinton and legislation that she supported at the time. More on that in a subsequent column.
  
  
• Hillary is an original co-sponsor of the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligation Act, which would grant the same benefits, including health insurance, to domestic partners of federal employees that are currently offered to employees’ legal spouses.
  
  
• Again, in line with undoing legacies instilled by the “other” Clinton, Hillary vows to repeal the ever-so-patriotic “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. Personally, my only bittersweet moment in law school occurred when I was accepted into the Judge Advocates General Corp (JAG) program and on principle, I turned down the offer. I couldn’t fathom explaining to people 10 years down the road that at one point in my career I compromised who I was for what I wanted to be. Hillary has been in support of repealing the policy since she ran for Senate in 1999, which proves her conviction is based on more than just winning the “gay vote” in this moment. On a realistic note, she’s rightfully concerned that the military is discharging people with critical skills, including desperately needed Arabic language skills.
  
  
• Hillary worked to defeat the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). The FMA would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and included language which could have prevented recognition of civil unions and domestic partnership benefits. The amendment failed by a vote of 49-48.
  
  
• Last but definitely not least, Hillary wrote the Early Treatment for HIV Act, which expands access to vital treatment options for low-income individuals living with HIV ensuring they receive needed treatments before the disease progresses. Hillary also signed the 08 Stop AIDS platform, committing to support $50 billion dollars by 2013 to fight the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.

I realize Hillary is a controversial candidate. The right believes she’s a liberal under a centrist cloak and the left wonders whether they even know who she is. The country is asking, can she win? We’ll see soon enough whether Hillary will “go hard or go home”. In the meantime, she has my full support and I’m enjoying every minute of the journey.

NOTE: Opinions are those of the author, and not necessarily those of PhillyGayCalendar.com or of any organization or business that the author is assosciated with.

 

Comments on Hillary Clinton's LGBT Record [Add]

Bill Browne from Wilkes Barre, PA: “While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It’s about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect.” — Senator Barack Obama Gay City News Endorsement January 31, 2008 In a presidential inaugural address that inspired a teenager from Hope, Arkansas named Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy famously urged Americans to focus not on what the country could do for them, but on what contributions they could make to the nation. Mind you, we in the LGBT community are not yet nearly at the point where this nation has made good on the contributions it owes to our lives, our families, our well-being, even our equal citizenship. Faced with the choice of two progressive Democrats who have spoken at length and with conviction about the challenges facing our lives, we still don’t have the luxury of picking a candidate who will advocate for our right to marry. We must yet take it on faith that the next president will have the fortitude to insist that Congress—including too many stragglers within the Democratic Party—open up the nation’s military to out gay and lesbian patriots. It is far from certain that the next time the Democratic Congress takes up an employment nondiscrimination measure it will include transgendered Americans as well as gay men and lesbians among those protected. But after seven years of George W. Bush, and compared against the prospect of either John McCain or Mitt Romney, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama truly offer hope to LGBT Americans that help is on the way. Given that the two Democratic contenders share a similar, generally friendly and supportive posture toward LGBT Americans, we ought to think about the message our choice sends about a fundamental question—what our politics should be all about. We are finding our place here and there at the table, but we have also spent much of our life on the outside. The nation needs to hear our views on how American politics can accommodate new voices in the mix. Judged by that measure and taking full stock of how the Democratic nomination contest has unfolded, we believe the choice is clear. Gay City News endorses Barack Obama. Read More... The Illinois senator has spoken of a politics of hope and change, not surprisingly given a life that has included a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, a term as president of the Harvard Law Review and a job as a community organizer on the streets of Chicago. Obama is a relative newcomer to the national scene, and it is not unfair to ask that he explain as clearly as possible how his skills, experience, and vision qualify him for the toughest job on earth. He deserves kudos for his courage in standing up against the rush to war in Iraq at a time when conventional political wisdom counseled a would-be national figure to do otherwise. He will serve the nation well if he can articulate a comprehensive approach not only toward the mess in Iraq but also the broader and more explosive question of America’s standing in the entire Islamic world. In his recent comments about what Ronald Reagan offered to Americans hungry for optimism and new ideas, Obama ought to have made more clear his understanding that at critical moments the hope for unity cannot substitute for hard choices. This newspaper was probably tougher on Obama than anyone else was for his ill-considered decision to call on Donnie McClurkin—a so-called “ex-gay” gospel singer vitriolic in his attacks on the LGBT community—to reach out to churchgoing African-American communities in South Carolina. We are counting on him to make wiser choices in future efforts to "build bridges"—and on that score applaud the loving words about his "gay brothers and sisters" Obama enunciated from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Atlanta pulpit last week. The McClurkin episode, unfortunate as it was, pales in comparison to the divisiveness that Senator Clinton has allowed her campaign to devolve into. Her comparison between the roles played by Dr. King and President Lyndon Johnson in advancing civil rights can be chalked up to inartfulness. The comments coming from her surrogates are far more disturbing, forming a pattern that sadly can no longer be ignored. Three Clintonites—the husband of former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen, Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson, and, most damningly, key strategist Mark Penn—all injected Obama’s acknowledged youthful cocaine use into the debate. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo inexplicably used the phrase "shuck and jive" in describing what a presidential candidate might try to pull with the media, and then had his operatives bombard the press with official umbrage that his words might be construed as targeting the African-American senator. Nobody, however, has been more egregious than Bill Clinton. In his ardent championing of his wife, the former president has dissed Obama as “a kid” and this past Saturday was quick to mention Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 South Carolina primary wins to contextualize Obama’s commanding victory. Notwithstanding the role of BET’s Johnson and the ardent support for the New York senator from towering African-American members of Congress such as Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters, the Clinton campaign’s intent is clear—Barack Obama, after his strong showing with white voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, must be marginalized as the “black candidate,” or Hillary runs the risk of losing. That is unacceptable, and the LGBT community should lend its voice to a growing progressive chorus in turning its back on this kind of politics. For us, winning in the ghetto is no longer good enough—not for blacks, not for gays, not for anyone. There is a great deal we admire about Hillary Clinton, and our conclusion about the direction of her campaign is arrived at with a heavy heart. Should she prevail in the nomination fight, we have hope that the better angels of her nature will come to the fore in the fall campaign. But at this moment we put our faith in the hope that remains undimmed. We urge a vote for Barack Obama.

Wes Burton from Saint Louis (Formal Philly-er) , MO: You just have to rememeber promises that Bill made and did not follow through on. Like admiting Gays in the Military of which he caved in on. You just can not count on promises Clinton's make.

Solange T. Cossette from Montreal, QC: This is a very interesting race.  The world is looking in!  Hillary's record is there for people to see.  She can make a difference and she will make a difference if you give her the chance.  She is smart, she is assertive and furthermore, she would bring something totally new and refreshing to the table.

Earle Core from Philadlephia, PA: Hello, I believe you're very wrong about her. For examples: Watch the LOGO forum. She says she will do this and this and this...and her head shakes back and forth the entire time except for the very last thing she says. She was lying about all she said except the final thing. Watch it and you'll see. She did the same thing in late Feb./early March when asked about Obama's religion. As she spoke, she continued to shake her head back and forth, lying again. Then the Bosnia thing. And the list goes on. I'm tired of the lies coming out of Washington as I'm sure you are. Do you really want someone else who continues to do the same thing?

Sandy Smith from Philadelphia, PA: I'm an Obama guy, but I will be no less thrilled at the prospect of a Hillary Clinton White House, and your article helps explain why. Personally, I consider her superior to her husband in many respects, and her evolution on several issues that matter to us is one reason. She has displayed a fighting spirit that I respect on the campaign trail. Regardless what happens between now and July, or who emerges as the Democratic standard-bearer, I am pleased that we will have a strong advocate for our rights at the helm for the fall campaign.

Teri from Philly, PA: I want to thank you for writing this. Especially in a time when it would seem females think it's cool and cutting edge to be against Hillary. Your points are valid and I hope you spread the word of Hillary loudly. I am a proud supporter of Hillary Clinton as well.