“Do I support granting same-sex benefits? Absolutely positively. Look, in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple. The fact of the matter is that under the Constitution we should be granted – same-sex couples should be able to have visitation rights in the hospitals, joint ownership of property, life insurance policies, etc. That’s only fair. It’s what the Constitution calls for. And so we do support it. We do support making sure that committed couples in a same-sex marriage are guaranteed the same constitutional benefits as it relates to their property rights, their rights of visitation, their rights to insurance, their rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do.”

“Unlike other gay celebrities who have come out recently, like Neil Patrick Harris or Lance Bass, (Clay) Aiken denied that he was gay long beyond the point of ridiculousness, and he did it in a way that bordered on homophobic. When The Advocate asked him if he was gay during an American Idol press conference, he simply turned the other way, as if he never heard the question. In 2006, a sexually suggestive video of Aiken leaked from a gay dating Web site, but that same year, he gave a big interview to People where he implied he was straight. He even offered a cover-up for the video: it wasn’t him, it was just somebody who looked exactly like him.”