Bernie, Hillary, and Bill timeline on gay rights

[Onlooker]

It’s difficult to compare Bill, Hillary, and Bernie on gay rights since they held different jobs, represented different constituencies, and dealt with different political realities.

1983—Bernie Sanders issues a gay pride day proclamation as mayor of Burlington, VT.
1985--Sanders passes a law in Burlington, VT preventing housing discrimination against gays.
1991—Bill Clinton becomes first presidential candidate to court the gay vote.
1992-2000—Bill Clinton substantially increases AIDS funding, fast track approval of AIDS drugs, tens of millions of dollars to educate and fight AIDS in high-risk communities.
1993—Bill Clinton proposes allowing gays in the military, is met with backlash from Democrats and Republicans alike, and compromises with Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell under threat of legislation to specifically exclude gays from the military.
1996—Bill Clinton states he is opposed to gay marriage.
1996—With states already amending their constitutions to prevent gay marriage, Bill Clinton states that that DOMA “confirms the right of each state to determine its own policy.”
1996—Bernie votes against DOMA arguing that the decision on marriage should be left up to each state.
1997—Bill Clinton speaks at the Human Rights Campaign and comes out against discrimination in the workplace.
1997—Bill Clinton pushes for hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation, but fails.
1997—Bill Clinton appoints openly gay US ambassador; he appoints over 150 openly gay people to various positions in government.
1997—Hillary Clinton works to defeat an effort to prevent unmarried and gay couples from adopting children; she prevails when such legislation is defeated in 1999.
1997—Bill Clinton delivers keynote address to Human Rights Campaign.
1998—Bill Clinton offers asylum to gays fleeing persecution.
1999—Hillary Clinton expresses support for domestic partnerships.
1999—After the Vermont Supreme Court rules that all citizens have the right to benefits of marriage, Sanders endorses the decision.
1999—Bill Clinton issues first gay and lesbian pride month proclamation.
1999—Bill Clinton advocates for gay rights in his State of the Union
2000—Hillary’s staff pushes for an executive order banning discrimination by government contractors, based on FDRs anti-discrimination order to protect PoC.
2000—Bill Clinton issues executive order banning discrimination by government contractors
2006—Hillary Clinton expresses support for civil unions and says states should be free to make the decision on gay marriage.
2006—Sanders is asked if Vermont should legalize same-sex marriage, he said, “No, not right now, not after what we went through.” Sanders supports civil unions.
2007—Hillary Clinton still opposes gay marriage, but says it should be up to the states.
2009—Bill Clinton expresses support for gay marriage, but argues it’s up to each state
2009--Hillary Clinton grants State Dept. gay couples the same benefits as heterosexual couples.
2009—Bernie Sanders expresses support for gay marriage after Vermont legalizes it.
2011—Bill Clinton urges the legalization of gay marriage in New York.
2011--Hillary Clinton declares in Switzerland, that "gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights"
2013—Hillary Clinton supports for gay marriage.

Sources:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/clinton-white-house-gay-rights-hillary-clinton-staff-116859
http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/timeline-bill-clintons-evolution-gay-rig
http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/Accomplishments/ac399.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/06/13/gross-misunderstanding-of-hillary-clinton-on-gay-marriage/
http://time.com/4089946/bernie-sanders-gay-marriage/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01/hillary-clinton-lgbt-_n_7706748.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/interviews/clinton.html

[Bluenorthwest]

1. March 2016

You left that one out. Of course.

[Betty Karlson]

4. Thanks for providing that link.

Her ignominious words should not be forgotten.

[Bluenorthwest]

5. Of course the OP, having a product to push, will not even attempt to address the current facts

of this campaign. The OP is all in with the candidate who was still smearing us deep into the Obama years so he has tough territory to defend.

[MuseRider]

6. Yup no agenda there! n/t

[Onlooker]

7. That's pretty insignificant ...

... relative to the things I listed. Perhaps you can post instead some substantial piece of legislation that Bernie introduced or got passed in support of gay rights? Aside from a few votes that accomplished nothing, what has he actually done for gays during his decades in Congress? The Clintons certainly had some failures, but they did a lot of good things. Bernie has no successes and no failures. You can argue because he has no failures he's better than the Clintons or you can argue because the Clintons have more successes they are better than Bernie.

[Faux pas]

2. Great job

Onlooker!!!

[Onlooker]

8. Thanks! n/t

[Democrats Ascendant]

3. Wow, thank you!

This is so informative!