Hillary to SCOTUS: Legalize gay marriage

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is urging the Supreme Court to grant a national right to same-sex marriage in a ruling expected this summer.

“Hillary Clinton supports marriage equality and hopes the Supreme Court will come down on the side of same-sex couples being guaranteed that constitutional right,” Clinton spokeswoman Adrienne Elrod told The Washington Blade.

{mosads}The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments later this month on a group of cases that will likely decide whether state bans on gay marriage are constitutional. The Justice Department is asking the court to grant a national right to gay marriage.

Clinton announced her support for gay marriage in a 2013 video message released by the Human Rights Campaign. In that video, she said gays and lesbians “deserve the rights of citizenship. That includes marriage.”

She touted a state-by-state approach to the marriage fight during a 2014 interview with NPR.

“I fully endorsed the efforts by activists to work state by state, and in fact that is what is working,” she told NPR.

“It is now continuing to succeed state by state. I am very hopeful that we will make progress and see even more change and acceptance.”

During that interview, Clinton said that she was glad that the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, which was signed by President Clinton in 1997.

The embrace of a national right to gay marriage is the latest move by Clinton to sketch out a policy platform for her presidential bid.

On Tuesday, during a stop at an Iowa community college, she floated the idea of a constitutional amendment on campaign finance reform and railed against CEO pay.