WASHINGTON (By Devlin Barrett, Associated Press) March 6, 2007 — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton told the nation's leading gay rights group in an unpublicized speech that she wants a partnership with gays if elected president.

Clinton also said she opposes the "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gays in the military that was instituted during her husband's presidency.

"I am proud to stand by your side," Clinton said in a keynote speech Friday to the Human Rights Campaign.

Neither Clinton's campaign nor her Senate office made any announcement that she would be making the Friday address.

Asked twice at a Monday campaign stop in Iowa why she did not publicize her speech to the group, Clinton said: "You'll have to ask my campaign."

In the speech, Clinton joked that she shares the same initials as the group, and pledged to maintain the same close working relationship that last year helped defeat the federal amendment which would have banned same-sex marriage.

"I want you to know that this is exactly the kind of partnership we will have when I am president," Clinton told the group.

"I want you to know that just as you always have an open door to my Senate office, you will always have an open door to the White House and together we can continue this journey."

Clinton's husband Bill Clinton was president when the Pentagon instituted the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which says gays may serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientation private. In 1999, as she prepared to run for the Senate from New York, Clinton opposed that policy.

Previous to Bill Clinton's administration, gays were flatly forbidden from serving in the military.