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Hillary comes out for same-sex marriage, sort of ...
Tells LGBT leaders her position 'has certainly evolved'


Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, considered the Democratic front-runner for the presidential nomination in 2008, announced to a small group of homosexual leaders this week she has changed her mind about same-sex marriage and now supports it – sort of.

In an appearance Wednesday evening in New York, she said she would not oppose efforts by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the odds-on favorite to become the new governor, to enact a same-sex marriage law in New York, according to a report in Gay City News.

When she ran for Senate in 2000, she said she opposed same-sex marriage. But that position didn't reflect the "many long conversations" she's had since with "friends" and others, and that her thinking "has certainly evolved."

"I believe in full equality of benefits, nothing left out," she said. "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."

But Clinton did add a caveat that upset some in attendance: "If you go the next step and say, 'But I want what is called marriage,' you're going to have a problem."

But then she threw another curveball, stating that she had no problem with states legalizing same-sex marriage.

"My position is consistent," she said. "I support states making the decision. I think that (Sen.) Chuck Schumer would say the same thing. And if anyone ever tried to use our words in any way, we'll review that. Because I think that it should be in the political process and people make a decision and if our governor and our legislature support marriage in New York, I'm not going to be against that... So I feel very comfortable with being able to refute anybody who tries to pit us or pit me against Eliot."

Asked several moments later by Gary Parker, the Greater Voices leader who chaired the meeting, to clarify that point, Clinton reiterated, "I am not going to speak out against, I'm not going to oppose anything that the governor and the legislature do."