With All the Excitement About Hillary Clinton’s Run for President, There’s a Bill More Worthy of Gay Support.
With all the hoopla surrounding Hillary Clinton’s announcement that she’s “in” the race for president, it was easy to miss that the very next day, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson threw his hat in the ring. Even as Hillary finally stepped from behind Bill Clinton into the full media spotlight of a run for the White House record, another Bill presented a record, especially to gay voters, that upstages the former first lady.

Hillary’s appeal to lesbians and gay men is easy to understand. She’s a strong, intelligent woman who has fought for women’s rights, and been unfairly and viciously maligned by conservatives. Plus she’s got star power and was done wrong by her man, qualities particularly irresistible to many gay men. There are even persistent lesbian rumors, probably believed only by those who hate her—and love her—the most.

But her record as a New York senator doesn’t match her kilowattage. In fact, her first term was described as “a complete disaster” by the head of that state’s gay rights group, who told colleagues a year ago he would refuse all requests to fund-raise on her behalf.

His beef with Hillary was over marriage, but the issue symbolizes Hillary’s larger problem. As with the war on Iraq and every other controversial issue, Hillary has played things exceedingly safe, overly cautious and calculated—every bit the political animal as her husband, but without any signs of true leadership..

The other Bill—Richardson from New Mexico—is as much a do-er as Hillary is a talker. He has 15 years in Congress under his belt, followed by a stint as energy secretary and then U.N. ambassador, earning a reputation as a top-notch international negotiator, a skill set desperately needed and so sorely lacking in the current White House occupant.

That negotiation savvy shouldn’t be underestimated. Look what it did for Richardson on the same issue that tripped Hillary: marriage equality. Both oppose gay marriage, but when the New Mexico legislature pushed a “Defense of Marriage Act” in 2005, Richardson said he would veto it unless it was enacted alongside civil unions. His position wasn’t just expedient; it was principled and would satisfy any but those with a marriage litmus test. The DOMA effort failed.

What’s more, in Richardson’s first term as governor of a red state that went twice for George W., he signed a virtual panoply of gay rights protections, that includes:

  * expanding civil rights laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity (only three other states had done so at the time);
  * a hate crimes law that protects both actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity; and
  * an executive order extending health insurance and other benefits to the same-sex domestic partners of state employees.

Like Hillary, Bill is on record backing full-fledged civil unions and unlike John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, Richardson opposes state-level constitutional amendments that ban gays from marrying.

While in Congress in the early ‘90s, Richardson backed military service for out gay men and lesbians. That means, unlike Hillary and the rest, Richardson was anti-Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell when it was very uncool to be.

Richardson’s record isn’t unblemished. He voted for the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, and hasn’t recanted his support. He will need to explain his position on DOMA and, at the very least, back repeal of the portion of DOMA that bans federal recognition of marriage licenses issued to gay couples.  He also backs federal recognition of state-issued civil unions. Given his support for civil unions, that seems likely.

Richardson’s resume and negotiation savvy, which requires bringing people together rather than wedging them, makes him an experienced politician who can legitimately claim to being “a uniter and not a divider.”

Hillary, on the other hand, comes across as so crippled by consultants and her own over-calculation that she can’t decide on her own name. Once again “Rodham” has been banished from HillaryClinton.com, her ‘08 Web site.

That overabundance of caution has resulted in a disturbing record of doing what’s expedient instead of what’s right. If politics prevented her—and continues to prevent her—from standing up to the president to stop the deaths of young men and women in an unjust war, then only the most wishful thinking suggests she would muster political courage for gay civil rights.

Chris Crain is former editor of the Washington Blade, Southern Voice, and gay publications in three other cities. He can be reached via his blog at www.citizencrain.com.