Hilary Clinton isn’t yet an official candidate for president of the United States in 2016, but that didn’t stop Equality California. The 800,000-member organization came out of the closet politically this week to endorse the one-time First Lady and Secretary of State’s anticipated candidacy. While the move is not surprising, the timing of the announcement certainly is.
“We want Hillary Clinton to run and are ready to mobilize our 800,000 members to help her win,” Equality California Executive Director Rick Zbur said in a statement. “We’re enthusiastic about her candidacy because she has the best record of accomplishment on LGBT issues of any potential candidate. Equality California is ready for Hillary!”
Little known outside of his Los Angeles hub, Zbur is the kind of advocate any candidate would find welcome. A 1979 graduate of Yale, Zbur received a law degree from Harvard, and is an environmental expert specializing in air quality and land use. He was also a specialist in government law before joining Equality California last year. In short, Zbur knows his stuff, and will prove an important ally to a Clinton candidacy.
“While serving as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton made her support for the LGBT community abundantly clear when she said ‘gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.’ Although she has yet to formally announce her candidacy, we unequivocally believe that she is not only the most qualified candidate, but also the best candidate to advance LGBT rights,” Zbur told the Agenda. “With this unequivocal support of her presidential bid, EQCA decided to take the unusual step to extend an early endorsement of Secretary Clinton to urge her to enter the presidential race. Along with our endorsement, we’re gearing up to fully support her candidacy for president by activating our members to mobilize around her campaign.”
It’s an open secret that Clinton is preparing to announce her candidacy for president in April and has strong support among her Democrat party members. And thanks to the Ready for Hillary super PACfundraisers, she’s got plenty of dough in her campaign coffers.
For all of EQCA’s enthusiasm and popularity among the LGBT community, she nevertheless has encountered some speed bumps as she positions herself for her presidential run. There are those who criticized her timing in endorsing same-sex marriage. You’ll recall that she came out in favor of marriage equality via a video published by the Human Rights Campaign in 2013.
At the time, Clinton said, “LGBT Americans are our colleagues, our teachers, our soldiers, our friends and our loved ones, and they are full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship. That includes marriage,” she says in a manner-of-fact tone, midway through the six-minute video. “That’s why I support marriage for lesbian and gay couples. I support it personally and as a matter of policy and law.”
During her tenure as First Lady, however, there was no suggestion that such was the case. It was only after becoming Secretary of State that bits of her personal feelings on the matter began to become known. Her video announcement from the HRC came 10 days after her husband, former President Bill Clinton, wrote a column in the Washington Post asking the Supreme Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act—a law he signed into life while president in 1996.
“When I was ready to say what I said, I said it,” Clinton stated, in an interview in June 2013 for NPR. She also said that she believes marriage should be left up to the states and expressed her support for state-by-state efforts to secure marriage equality. That is not a position that is shared by majority of marriage-equality advocates who believe a national resolution must come from the Supreme Court. So too does Equality California. Stay tuned…Until next week…
