text: Hillary Clinton has garnered one of her first major endorsements in run bid for the White House: The nation's largest lesbian political action committee. The group, LPAC, launched Lesbians4Hillary on Monday to support the former First Lady's bid to become the nation's first female president. Lesbians4Hillary, co-chaired by pioneering tennis great Billie Jean King, said: 'Hillary Clinton is a proven leader and she has a strong track record when it comes to inclusion -- specifically for women and the LGBTQ community. Scroll down for video . Tennis star Billie Jean King (right) is co-chairing the Lesbians4Hillary campaign. King, pictured with Clinton in 2008, helped run the former Fiirst Lady's 2008 Women for Hillary Clinton wing . King, pictured with Clinton in 2001, said: 'Hillary Clinton is a proven leader and she has a strong track record when it comes to inclusion -- specifically for women and the LGBTQ community' 'Her entire career has been a road map to get her to this moment and she has earned my respect and my vote to become the next President of the United States of America. I am honored to join LPAC and help lead our effort to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016.' King, who was outed as a lesbian in 1981, was a leader of the group 'Women for Hillary' in 2008, as well. The video in which Hillary announced she was running for president included a clip of a lesbian couple . The Twitter handle for the new group is @lezs4hillary . Many gays and lesbians point to Clinton's 2011 speech in Switzerland as Secretary of State in which she declared: 'Human rights are gay rights and gay rights are human rights.' In the video released yesterday announcing Clinton's candidacy for president, two gay couples were included. Among them, two lesbians who look lovingly into each other's eyes. However, in her 2008 campaign, Clinton did not support gay marriage. It took her five years - to publicly say that she supported gay marriage. President Barack Obama publicly announced his support for gay marriage nearly a year earlier in March 2012. The Economist called Clinton's stance on gay marriage, 'cautious to the point of cowardice.' 'It is not convincing to argue, as her supporters do, that she is only free to make her views known now that she has stepped down as America's chief diplomat. Her successor at the State Department, John Kerry, and has not been stoned as a blasphemer on any of his stops around the world to date,' the magazine's US columnist wrote. Critics also point out that as First Lady, she did not oppose her husband signing 'Don't Ask Don't Tell,' which banned being openly gay in the military or the Defense of Marriage Act, which banned gay marriage at the federal level.
target: LPAC, a pro-LGBT Super PAC, launched Lesbians4Hillary on Monday .
  Group is co-chaired by tennis great Billie Jean King .
  Hillary Clinton opposed gay marriage until 2013 - a year after Obama came out in support .
  She also did not publicly object to passage of Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act as First Lady under her husband's administration .