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The Hillary Clinton Lesbian Rumor
(posted June 22, 2005)
By Darrell M. West, Brown University
Is Hillary Clinton a lesbian? The
short answer to this question is no.
There is not and never has been any credible evidence to that rumor.
But this is not stopping Ed Klein from recirculating
this unfounded rumor in his new unauthorized biography of Senator
Clinton.
In repeating this rumor, Klein is following a concerted,
but unsuccessful 2000 effort to torpedo Mrs. Clinton’s Senate campaign
with exactly the same type of rumor.
In 2003, I published an article entitled
"Responsibility Frenzies: Dissecting a Hillary Clinton Rumor" in
the Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics,
Vol. 8, no. 2, (Spring, 2003), pp. 104-114
that looked at this effort.
Click here to
read my Hilary Clinton lesbian article
My article details how in 2000, the Christian Action Network
made a major effort to publicize this rumor.
It held a September 7, 2000
press conference
to discuss the rumor and later tried to get New York
television
outlets to broadcast the following ad.
CAN Ad: "It is rumored that
Hillary Clinton is a lesbian.
It is rumored that Hillary Clinton supports homosexual marriage.
It is rumored that Hillary Clinton will leave her husband upon
taking office. It was rumored that Bill Clinton had an affair
with Monica Lewinsky. Sometimes rumors are true.
Shouldn't you know the truth? For more information on traditional
family values, please contact the Christian Action Network."
Most major newspapers did not cover the press conference
and the ad aired once on a station in Watertown,
New York.
The only exceptions to the silence from the mainstream
media were brief stories in the Washington Post (
Sept. 19, 2000); Virginia
Roanoke Times (Sept. 21);
New York Post (Sept. 26);
Yahoo.com TV coverage
(Sept. 27); and San Francisco Examiner (Sept. 28).
Frustrated at the lack on coverage from the mainstream press,
on October 17, 2000, the Christian Action Network convinced the National
Enquirer
to run a cover story entitled "Hillary Caught with Galpal in Midnight
Swim"
(complete with a red box proclaiming "New Gay Scandal
Erupts").
But this smear campaign was not
successful. Not only did the
rumor not catch on, Hillary Clinton won her Senate seat
with a comfortable margin.
Now author Klein is attempting to follow the strategy of the
Swift Boat Veterans and use a book to attract media attention
and sales to his unfounded reports.
Hopefully,
the news media will exercise the same good judgment employed in 2000
and not devote much attention to his unfounded charges.
 
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