Gay Rights: "This has not been a long-term struggle yet."

[CorpGovActivist]

When asked to comment on whether the states' rights argument against gay equality is reminiscent of how that same argument was used during the height of the Civil Rights era, this Democratic candidate stated: "This has not been a long-term struggle yet," suggesting that the LGBT community should wait its turn for equality.

The embedded video of that exchange is mid-way down the page.

The answer reveals an astonishing level of ignorance, selective historical amnesia, or both. First, the candidate suggests that a Federal Marriage Amendment would have been "the first time" that discrimination was "enshrined" in our Constitution.

Funny, I thought Yale Law School required all first years to take constitutional law.

The three-fifths compromise touched on how Persons were counted. The candidate's answers in the embedded video segments reveal a willingness to make a modern-day "three-fifths compromise" on human rights equality for the LGBT community.

The Fourteenth Amendment expanded the definition of Citizen.

The Nineteenth Amendment expanded that defintion even further, to include women.

The Constitution's prior silence on women's rights operated no less effectively as a bar to equality than if it HAD been "enshrined" explicitly. The same is true today for equal rights for the LGBT community.

Finally, if the candidate needs more historical evidence that this has been a "long-term struggle," I'd be happy to offer up a reading recommendation: the Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary In which is contained, in Chronological Order, Evidence of the True and Fantastical HISTORY of those Persons now called LESBIANS and GAY MEN, and of the Changing Social Forms of and Responses to those Acts, Feelings, and Relationships now called HOMOSEXUAL, in the Early American Colonies, 1607 to 1740, and in the Modern United States, 1880 to 1950. My edition is copyrighted 1994.

I think the old-fashioned sub-title is meant to spoof the right-wing notion that there isn't historical evidence of the community's struggle in American History. Never did I suspect that the Democratic candidate in question would be so in need of such a spoof title to upbraid her, nor did I ever expect to hear such hems, haws, and carefully, cautiously-worded answers on these issues.

But then again, I didn't expect Mark Penn's phantom datasets and triangulation "stategery" to be governing this campaign's message, either.

- Dave

[LeftCoast]

1. I'm the last person to excuse Clinton's positions on LGBT issues but

I think you're misconstruing her words a bit. Some might call it spin, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

[CorpGovActivist]

2. Did You View the Video Segments?

They run a lot longer than it took you to respond - largely because she ate up so much time with hedging pauses.

- Dave