It’s the first time she has been extensively questioned on her support for gay marriage. Clinton gets testy over gay marriage

Hillary Clinton had a tense exchange with an NPR host in an interview airing Thursday over whether she made “a calculus” against publicly supporting gay marriage before endorsing it last year.

It’s the first time Clinton, a potential candidate for president in 2016, has been extensively questioned about her support for gay marriage. She did not back it in her 2008 presidential campaign but she issued support for it by video in 2013, weeks after leaving the State Department.


Her support came after President Barack Obama, shoved toward it publicly by Vice President Joe Biden, backed gay marriage in the middle of the 2012 presidential race.

NPR’s Terry Gross was interviewing Clinton about her newly released memoir, “Hard Choices.” She repeatedly asked the former secretary of state whether her opinion on gay marriage had changed, or whether the political dynamics had shifted enough that she could express her opinion.

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“I have to say, I think you are being very persistent, but you are playing with my words and playing with what is such an important issue,” Clinton said.

“I’m just trying to clarify so I can understand …” Gross said.

“No, I don’t think you are trying to clarify,” Clinton snapped back. “I think you’re trying to say I used to be opposed and now I’m in favor and I did it for political reasons, and that’s just flat wrong. So let me just state what I feel like you are implying and repudiate it. I have a strong record, I have a great commitment to this issue, and I am proud of what I’ve done and the progress we’re making.”

The exchange comes the same week that Clinton began her book tour and accompanying media rollout, during which there has already been at least one other rocky moment: When she said that after leaving the White House, she and former President Bill Clinton were “dead broke,” a remark she has since sought to clarify.

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A recording of the NPR interview was shared with POLITICO by America Rising, a Republican research group that’s spent the majority of its time focused on Clinton. “Fresh Air” is a favorite program among progressives.

“I did not grow up even imagining gay marriage, and I don’t think you probably did, either,” Clinton said to Gross. “This was an incredibly new and important idea that people on the front lines of the gay rights movement began to talk about and slowly, but surely, convinced others of the rightness of that position. And when I was ready to say what I said, I said it.”

Clinton was lauded at the State Department for focusing on LGBT issues related to agency personnel and also in other countries. But she formally stated her support for gay marriage only after a number of prominent Democrats, such as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, and even some Republicans, such as Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, had already done so.

Her allies have attributed her timing to the need for her to stay apolitical while at the State Department.

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“You know, somebody is always first, Terry,” Clinton said. “Somebody is always out front, and thank goodness they are. But that doesn’t mean that those who join later, in being publicly supportive or even privately accepting that there needs to be change, are any less committed. You could not be having the sweep of marriage equality across our country if nobody changed their mind, and thank goodness so many of us have.”

She further argued that “too many people believe they have a direct line to the Divine, and they never want to change their mind about anything, they’re never open to new information, and they like to operate in an evidence-free zone. ... And I think it’s good if people continue to change.”

Gross noted that in the 1990s — when Clinton’s husband signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which let states refuse to recognize same-sex marriages permitted by other states and also prevented federal recognition of such unions — there already were supporters of gay marriage.

“To be fair Terry, not that many,” Clinton replied. “Were there activists who were ahead of their time, well that was true in every human rights and civil rights movement, but the vast majority of Americans were just waking up to this issue, and beginning to think about it, and grasp it for the first time, and think about their neighbor down the street who deserved to have the same rights as they did, or their son, or their daughter.”

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The ’90s were another era, she said, and replied “of course,” when asked if she was glad the Supreme Court has since struck down elements of DOMA.

But at the time, “There was a very concerted effort in the Congress to make it even more difficult and greater discrimination and what DOMA did is at least allow the states to act. It wasn’t going yet to be recognized by the federal government but at the state level there was the opportunity. And my husband was the first to say, that you know, the political circumstances, the threats that were trying to be alleviated by the passage of DOMA, thankfully, were no longer so preeminent, and we could keep moving forward and that’s what we’re doing.”

Pressed on whether she, or the public, have changed since then, Clinton replied, “I think I’m an American, and I think we have all evolved, and it’s been one of the fastest, most sweeping transformations I’m aware of.”

That’s something that “we ought to celebrate, instead of plowing old ground,” she said.

At another point in the interview, asked about the political calculus involved, Clinton told Gross she was interpreting things “very wrong.” Throughout the segment, Clinton said several times that she has “evolved” on the issue, and bristled at the suggestion that, “for political reasons,” she couldn’t speak out sooner.

She said that she long held the view that marriage was best left to the states, and that she had supported initiatives such as fighting employment discrimination.

After leaving the State Department, “I was able to very quickly announce that I was fully in support of gay marriage and it is now continuing to proceed state by state,” Clinton said. “I’m very hopeful we will make progress and see even more change and acceptance.”