Stuff Gay People Like: Hillary Clinton

Television shows like Will & Grace and Sex in the City  depict very real stories, and include very real gay men and their sexually-liberated female cohorts (also real).

They are set in New York City, where all gay men live, and have taught us that every gay man’s best friend is a woman – specifically, a woman living in a big city, who is probably single or at least in an open relationship.

Hillary Clinton is all three of those things. Wouldn’t it be cool, then, if your best-friend-of-the-gays girl friend could be president of the United States? That is why, in 2008, every single gay guy in America voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

If Hillary were elected president in 2008, it’s certain she would have appointed a gay man as her vice-president/gay-best-friend, who would be the most fashionable sidekick in human history.

Sigh, we were so close.

The 2008 Democratic primary was not so much about policy; Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were virtually identical when it came to issues, and choosing between the two was just about breaking somebody’s glass ceiling. “Change” vs. “Experience” was overshadowed by the awesome power of pissing off, respectively, sexists, or racists. Clinton could shatter the American Presidency as a males-only institution. Obama could shatter the American Presidency as a whites-only institution.

Both scenarios are equally awesome. But in 2008, gay men didn’t split even: there was a groundswell of support for Hillary. While the “Bill was cool” argument was popular with West Virginians and the “experience” thing was important for some old people, gay guys just really wanted a woman to be president.

Homophobia is about gender assignments: men are supposed to lead the nuclear family, marry a lady and “act like guys.” Since most gay men avoid two of those roles and a number of them are orphans to all three, shattering the dominance of gender roles is also great news for gay people living a marginalized existence in America.

Barack Obama was, incidentally, not only a straight guy but also clearly a jock; remember that there were those pictures of him playing basketball. Nobody wants a president who wants to snap your gay ass with wet towels after gym class.

Your author was actually an Obama supporter, because your author didn’t want four presidents in a row to come from two families (Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Clinton), and, oh, there were a lot of other things, but this isn’t the place to discuss that. Your author would have been happy to vote for either of them, but after choosing sides, wading through the crowds of passionate Hillary Clinton supporters at the gay bars was like hanging out in a Mormon wedding party after somebody blabbed you were the one who spiked the punch.

A lot of people said Hillary would be “the most pro-gay president so far in American history,” which wasn’t really saying much. Would you be comparing her to the one who signed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell into law, or to the one whose most gay friendly comment ever was “well we’re all sinners?” Besides, Obama taught in a friggin’ university, which is America’s official coming-out/exploring-your-sexuality zone.

It turned out to not matter, because regardless of who became president – McCain, Obama, Hillary, Palin – America was inevitably headed for soup lines. The ball was already rolling on that, and whoever got elected was going to wish she or he wasn’t. Yet former-candidate-Clinton is not a passing figure in American politics; she became Secretary of State and is now and forever one of our favorite Stuffs Gay People Like.

Stuff Gay People Like (SGPL: ABOUT) is a regular column. Visit the Facebook Page.