By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

In an interview Feb. 10 with the Washington Blade, Hillary Clinton pledged to be the first president to march in a GLBT Pride parade and vowed to vigorously push Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and other legislation.

“I talk about gay issues frequently,” she said. “I’ve been a longtime friend of the gay community…I talk about ending discrimination all the time.”

Clinton wouldn’t discuss House leaders’ decision to drop transgender protections from ENDA late last year but said she is lobbying for the original trans-inclusive version of the bill.

“I would prefer an inclusive bill in the Senate and have been urging that that’s what the Senate would consider,” she said. “That would be in keeping with my position.”

Clinton also ticked off a list of other GLBT-rights bills she wants Congress to pass, including the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligation Act, which would give GLBT federal government employees domestic partner benefits. She also supports the Uniting American Families Act to allow foreign partners of gays and lesbians to obtain resident status in the U.S. but wants to include the measure in a more comprehensive immigration reform bill.

“I’m supportive of it and the strategy was to do it as part of comprehensive immigration reform,” she told the Blade. “We still need to do comprehensive immigration reform. …That is my preference.”

Clinton said she would push for repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy—which was enacted in 1993 in her husband’s administration and prohibits gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military—as soon as possible.

“We have to get a coalition together that will support repealing that legislation that will give us the authority to do what I’ve been advocating, which is allowing people to serve based on their desire and commitment to service without regard to sexual orientation,” she said.

She also reiterated her support for repealing a section of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, rather than the entire act. The partial repeal she advocates would allow the federal government to recognize the rights of gay and lesbian couples.

“I think extending federal benefits is a very important step forward,” Clinton said. “I don’t see why a same-sex couple in California, which has a domestic partnership law, should be able to take advantage of the Family Medical Leave Act if one of them is ill, while a couple in another state without such a law cannot.

“I would like to see federal benefits extended to same-sex couples that meet certain standards of commitment regardless of the state in which they reside. Too many couples cannot share life decisions or jointly own property or take care of one another within a recognized legal framework. I want to change that.”

Clinton said leaving the remainder of the act in place, for now, undermines anti-gay groups’ pressure to pass a federal marriage constitutional amendment.

“I believe that my position reflects the experience I had fighting against the Federal Marriage Amendment,” she told the Blade. “At the time, I was chair of the Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee and I worked hand-in-hand with (the Human Rights Campaign) and other members of the LGBT community to stop the amendment.

“We’d already seen the success the Republican majority had had in 2002, 2004 in using this as a wedge issue. I was able to explain to other senators that DOMA ensured marriage would be left to the states—that was critical in defeating the amendment. It gave us an argument with both Republicans and Democrats.”