Does Laura Bush Support Gay Marriage?

by Michael Jones · 2010-04-28 06:05:00 UTC
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Laura BushCould Laura Bush be more progressive on gay marriage than ... Barack Obama? Well, that's the open-ended question left after reading a key excerpt from her new memoir, Spoken from the Heart, out this week. Her husband, former President George W. Bush, is long thought to be one of the most anti-gay Presidents we've had, literally calling for a federal Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage during the State of the Union address. But was Mrs. Bush down with those plans?

Not really, if you believe her words to her husband shortly before the 2004 Presidential election kicked into gear. According to Mrs. Bush, right before the 2004 election season started — you know, the election year that saw numerous statewide ballot questions asking voters to ban gay marriage — she issued her husband a warning that the GOP could be becoming dangerously offensive on the issue of gay marriage.

"In 2004 the social question that animated the campaign was gay marriage. Before the election season had unfolded, I had talked to George about not making gay marriage a significant issue," Laura Bush writes in her memoir. "We have, I reminded him, a number of close friends who are gay or whose children are gay. But at that moment I could never have imagined what path this issue would take and where it would lead."

Apparently G.W. Bush didn't listen. Or he just didn't care.

As campaign historians have noted, part of the electoral strategy for the GOP in 2004 was to get ballot measures in states putting up for a vote the rights of gays and lesbians to get married. Why? Right-wing voter turnout. Throw some red meat to anti-gay forces in red or swing states, and lo and behold, the voters will come. Or so was their thought in 2004.

Still, wouldn't it be great to be a gay fly on the wall in this White House?  You have a FLOTUS cautioning her husband to stop being so harsh on gay marriage. You have a Vice President with a partnered lesbian daughter. You have Ted Haggard making frequent pilgrimages to the Oval Office. And yet the result is one of the most anti-gay administrations this side of the International Date Line, which will go down in history for (1) calling for a Constitutional ban on gay marriage; (2) refusing to sign a UN statement condemning the global criminalization of homosexuality; (3) questioning whether homosexuality was a choice; (4) stalling on hate crimes legislation that included protections for sexual orientation and gender identity; and (5) suggesting that gay adoption was uncouth.

Now if Laura Bush is right, and the former first couple does have some gay friends, those must be some awfully forgiving gay friends.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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