Chelsea Clinton’s Pro-Marriage Equality Ads ‘Scuttled’ by NBC

I don’t think anyone can be shocked by the idea of Chelsea Clinton as a possible future politician. As the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, it would almost be shocking to see her not pursue a political career.

But at the moment, Clinton is an employee of NBC, where she has been serving as a non-political correspondent, and it would seem that her superiors were none too happy about a couple of pre-election ads Clinton made in support of marriage equality. From BuzzFeed:

Why Should Heteros Have All the Headache?
(get it in the Stew Store)

NBC News blocked backers of a key marriage equality measure in Washington State from using a video featuring Chelsea Clinton urging voters to support a state-wide referendum on gay marriage, BuzzFeed has learned.

Clinton, a vocal proponent of marriage equality, cut the video for a group supporting the Washington state measure, as well as a second video for another group. But NBC, for which Clinton works as a “special correspondent” since last November, “scuttled” the campaign, sources familiar with the ads said.

In the weeks before the November elections — where voters in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington voted on measures relating to same-sex couples’ marriage rights — such prominent support would have been heavily sought. Clinton had supported efforts toward the legislative passage of marriage equality in New York, going so far as to attend and participate in a phone-banking effort in Manhattan before the legislature approved the bill in June 2011.

NBC hasn’t given a reason as to why they wouldn’t allow the ads to run, but it’s possible that it would have been a violation of Clinton’s contract, as the New York Post reported:

After being a prominent campaigner for her mother, Hillary Clinton, five years ago, Chelsea Clinton’s absence from the current presidential campaign is conspicuous. But sources tell us she isn’t disillusioned with President Obama, but that her contract with NBC News “prevents her from participating in the campaign.”

Luckily, NBC’s “scuttling” didn’t make much of a difference. Maine, Washington, and Maryland all voted in favor of the measures approving gay marriage in their states, while Minnesota voted against a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.