Bill Clinton’s other “Sistah Souljah moment”

President Clinton’s liaison to the gay and lesbian community Marsha Scott warns, in this Memorandum, Vice President Gore about the “growing fear… that we are doing a ‘Sister Souljah’ and distancing ourselves” from the gay and lesbian community by potentially supporting the Defense of Marriage Act. The openly gay and lesbian appointees who were about to hear from the Vice President could only imagine, in March 1996, what was about to happen.

We have not seen this “Sister Souljah” warning in the immediate press coverage of the just-released Clinton Library’s DOMA papers… so in case the library withheld it, we are releasing a copy of the “Sister Souljah DOMA Memorandum” obtained by the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C.

Read the documents:

May 15, 1996 Memorandum to Vice President Gore from Marsha Scott

May 16, 1996 Backgrounder on Gay and Lesbian Presidential  Appointees Reception