Dribs and drabs of interesting quotes keep coming out of the hack of the Hillary Clinton campaign’s emails. The leaks, probably orchestrated by Russia, have been mostly unsurprising but they do provide a bit of an insight into her thought process — including her thoughts on “gay rights.”
In an off-the record interview, a New York Times reporter chatted with her about … well, we don’t really know what, because it was off the record. That’s not unusual at all, but a few fragments of their conversation survive because the reporter circled back to the campaign to ask if they could use some of Hillary’s quotes from the talk.
Specifically, they were interested in publishing this: “gay rights has moved much faster than women’s rights or civil rights, which is an interesting phenomenon somebody in the future will unpack,” Hillary said.
That’s an interesting observation, worded awkwardly. It’s obvious what she meant — that attitudes towards LGBTs have moved much faster in the last 40 years than they have on women’s and racial equality. That’s quite true! And it’s an interesting point. But oh, the wording: “gay rights” is a bit of an old fashioned term, since gays don’t see special rights, just the same rights as everyone else.
And oof, it’s a little weird to put “gay rights” against “women’s” and “civil.” Of course, there’s a lot of intersectionality in there, since many queer people are women, and civil rights apply to all of us. These aren’t parallel tracks of liberation, they’re all happening together and overlapping. Given more time, Hillary could surely have formulated a much better statement that wasn’t prone to misunderstanding, but this was just an informal off-the-cuff chat, so of course the wording isn’t quite there.
Nevertheless — it’s nice to know Hillary’s paying attention to our struggle.
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This article originally appeared on Queerty
Photo credit: Getty Images
Please stop trying to compare gay rights vs civil rights as they are not even close. The sh&*&*&T black people still have to put up with is crazy. Then i hear people like you throwing this intersectionality nonsense. Stay in your lane
Sorry but I have to LOL because out of all the incriminating emails, ya’ll have picked this one. . Not too long ago Hillary stated that marriage is between a man and a woman. As well as her pushing for a fence (wall) on the Mexican border. There are none so blind as those who do not see … are the Hilary lovers really that blind? Are such sheeple to main stream media.
You should see the article laying out Hillary’s plan to save and unite America through a Marshall plan type investment in infrastructure.
If you’d show a link to it, I appreciate it.