We care more about building with clang than binary portability between
Linux distributions.

Index: configure
--- configure.orig
+++ configure
@@ -12397,7 +12397,9 @@ $as_echo "$as_me: error: gethostbyname_r is required" 
    ;;
 esac
 
-if test -n "$GCC"; then
+if true; then
+      LD="$CXX"
+else
    # Starting with GCC 3.0, you must link C++ programs against either
    # libstdc++ (shared by default), or libsupc++ (always static).  If
    # you care about binary portability between Linux distributions,