Bill Clinton Speaks OUT on Gay Marriage, DOMA, Gays in Military

Excerpt: There was at the time a serious effort to argue that the Congress ought to present to the States a constitutional amendment on gay marriage. The idea behind the Defense of Marriage Act was not to ban gay marriage, but for them to simply to say that if a marriage was…just because Massachusetts recognized the gay marriage. …

All [DOMA] said was that Idaho did not have to recognize a marriage sanctified in Massachusetts. That seemed to be reasonable compromise in the environment of the time and it’s a slight rewriting of history for Melissa [Etheridge], whom I very much respect, to imply that somehow this was anti-Gay.

... The only point I was making is that I think that the attack that Melissa Ethridge is raised is a slight rewriting of history and doesn’t take a good account of where we were at the time and the fact that the Republican Right thought if they could just have a national referendum on gay marriage and make the Democratic Party about nothing but that they could bury the progressives in the country.