Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has joined the Human Rights Campaign's Americans for Marriage Equality series, a public engagement campaign featuring prominent Americans who support committed gay and lesbian couples getting married.
She draws on her experience as Secretary of State, where she addressed LGBT issues: "It inspired and challenged me to think anew about who we are and the values we represent to the world. Now having left public office, I want to share some of what I've learned and what I come to believe."
She said for America to continue leading in the world, there is work to be done at home. That includes "investing in our people, our economy, our national security. It also means working every day as citizens, as communities, as a country to live up to our highest ideals and continue our long march to a more perfect union.
"LGBT Americans are our colleagues, our teachers, our soldiers, our friends, our loved ones. And they are full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship. That includes marriage. That's why I support marriage for lesbian and gay couples. I support it personally and as a matter of policy and law. ... My personal views have been shaped over time, by people I have known and loved. ...
"Marriage after all is a fundamental building block of our society ... . To deny the opportunity to any of our daughters or sons solely on the basis of who they are and who they love, is to deny them the chance to live up to their own God-given potential.
"For those of us who lived through the long years of the civil rights and women's rights movements, the speed with which more and more people have come to embrace the dignity and equality of LGBT Americans has been breathtaking, and inspiring. We see it all around us, every day in major cultural statements and in quiet family moments. But the journey is far from over."
Her full statement can be viewed at: action.hrc.org/site/PageServer .
