The case you took to the Supreme Court argues that because of the Defense of Marriage Act, you were unfairly taxed on the estate of your spouse, Thea Spyer, who died in 2009. What did you think when Bill Clinton signed DOMA into law?

Hated it. I hated him. I would trust no Clinton anywhere any time.

Even now?

No, no. They have learned and have retracted. All I know is they have come to regret that vote and asked the court to find that DOMA is unconstitutional.

Rob Portman, a Republican senator, was recently criticized for changing his view on gay marriage solely because he learned that his son was gay.

That’s how everybody who’s not gay decides to support gay marriage. They discover that somebody they know and love is gay, and they say, “Oh, Jesus, I had no idea.” Dick Cheney, same thing.

You’ve said that until the 1969 Stonewall riots, you weren’t comfortable with really flamboyant gay men. Why not?

They were just queerer. That’s the only way I could say it. I was a middle-class woman in New York. Thea and I had a lot of internalized homophobia as well. Then suddenly with Stonewall, they were heroes in our lives.