she had a message: “Look, motherfuckers, how could you do this to this woman when she’s done so much for this community?”

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Clinton had come into her role at the State Department with an uneven record on LGBT issues. She marched in the gay pride parade in New York in 2000 as a candidate for U.S. Senate, becoming the first First Lady to do that, and she did it again in 2006—another election year—but she was resolutely against same-sex marriage when she was a candidate for the Senate, when she was in the Senate, and throughout her initial presidential campaign. “I think marriage is as marriage has always been—between a man and a woman,” she said in 2000. “I prefer to think of it as being very positive aboutcivil unions,” she said in 2007.

Hillary Clinton has a varied record on LGBT rights, opposing marriage equality throughout her years in the Senate but establishing equal protections for the domestic partners of Foreign Service members during her time at the State Department. Above, Clinton waves to the crowd during the annual gay pride parade June 25, 2000, in New York City. | Chris Hondros/Newsmakers

Some LGBT people remained leery of her, too, because her husband as president in the 1990s had signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, and also the policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which effectively closeted gay military members. Both laws were deeply disappointing to LGBT people, who had considered President Clinton an ally and felt