2011 Email Reveal: Hillary Clinton Was Angry About Changing Passports For Same-Sex Parents

According to a just-revealed 2011 email, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was furious that her department had proposed replacing “mother” and “father” with gender-neutral terms on US passports. Via the Huffington Post:

“Who made the decision that State will not use the terms ‘mother and father’ and instead substitute ‘parent one and two’?” Clinton wrote in an email to staff on Jan. 8, 2011. The email was released Wednesday by the State Department as part of an ongoing dump of emails that Clinton sent from a personal account during her time as secretary of state. “I’m not defending that decision, which I disagree w and knew nothing about, in front of this Congress. I could live w letting people in nontraditional families choose another descriptor so long as we retained the presumption of mother and father,” she wrote. “We need to address this today or we will be facing a huge Fox-generated media storm led by [Sarah] Palin et al.” Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff at the time, responded, “Reaching out to folks to find out.”

The State Department ended up not making the change. Late in 2011 Clinton delivered a historic and forceful speech in support of LGBT rights which many activists, including yours truly, consider to be the highlight of her time as Secretary of State.