WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton’s embrace of gay marriage Monday signals she may be seriously weighing a 2016 presidential run and trying to avoid the type of late-to-the-party caution that hurt her first bid.

Her chief Democratic rivals endorsed same-sex marriage as much as seven years ago, and it’s widely popular with Democratic andindependent voters.

By supporting gay marriage a full two years before the next presidential primary warms up, Clinton may render the issue largely settled among Democrats, should she decide to run.

For those who lived “through the long years of the civil rights and women’s rights movements, the speed with which more and more people have come to embrace the dignity and equality of LGBT Americans has been breathtaking and inspiring,” Clinton said in a six-minute video, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender persons.

In the video, released by the gay rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, Clinton says gays and lesbians are “full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship.”

“That includes marriage,” she said, adding she backs gay marriage both “personally and as a matter of policy and law.”