Clinton angrily defends same-sex marriage stance

Hillary Clinton defended her initial opposition to gay marriage, denying in a radio interview that political reasons were behind her shift last year to supporting same-sex marriage.

She accused the host of the show of “playing with my words”.

“I did not grow up even imagining gay marriage and I don’t think you did either,” she told National Public Radio’s Terry Gross.

“This was an incredibly new and important idea that people on the front lines of the gay right movement began to talk about and slowly, but surely, convinced others about the rightness of that position,” she added.

“When I was ready to say what I said, I said it.”

The terse exchange came during Clinton’s media tour supporting her new book, Hard Choices. Clinton has said she’ll decide later this year whether to make a second run for president.

In 2008, Clinton, Barack Obama and other Democratic presidential candidates opposed legalising same-sexmarriage, although they endorsed versions of civil unions.

In March 2013, Clinton released a video expressing her support for same-sex marriage, shortly after she left the state department. As the nation’s top diplomat, she refrained from weighing in on domestic politics but won praise from gay rights organisations for bringing attention to LGBT issues.

But the former first lady’s announcement came after Obama, vice president Joe Biden and several prominent Democrats — along with Republicans like Ohio senator Rob Portman — had stated their support for same-sex marriage.

The NPR interview became tense when Gross asked Clinton repeatedly about her shift to support gay marriage. At one point, Clinton told Gross: “I think you’re being very persistent, but you are playing with my words and playing with what is such an important issue.” Gross said she was trying to clarify Clinton’s views on the issue.

“No, I don’t think you are trying to clarify,” Clinton responded. “I think you are trying to say that I used to be opposed and now I am in favour and I did it for political reasons. And that’s just flat wrong. So let me just state what I feel like you are implying and repudiate it.”

Clinton added: “I have a strong record. I have a great commitment to this issue and I am proud of what I’ve done and the progress we’re making.”

Gross noted that Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, signed the Defence of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman and denied gay couples a range of federal marriage benefits.

The former New York senator said the nation is “living at a time when this extraordinary change is occurring and I’m proud of our country”. She said that in 1993, “that was not the case”.

Gross asked Clinton if her views had evolved since the 1990s. Clinton said, “I’m an American... I think that we have all evolved and it’s been one of the fastest, most sweeping transformations that I’m aware of.”

Clinton said in an interview to air on CBS Sunday Morning that she learned in 2008 that the “American political system is probably the most difficult, even brutal, in the world”. But she told NPR she wouldn’t be deterred “by the blood sport of politics”.

Asked about Republican Karl Rove’s recent questioning of her health or false suggestions by Republicans that she was using a walker in a People magazine cover photo, Clinton said, “I am so used to these people”.

“They are like a bunch of, you know, gamers. They are constantly trying to raise false canards, plant false information. That’s what they do.”