Dallas resident and former first lady Laura Bush’s memoirs, “Spoken from the Heart,” won’t be released until next Tuesday, but The New York Times and Politico are already reporting on some of the contents. According to Mike Allen at Politico, one memorable passage appears on Page 303:
“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. 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.”
Let’s just hope those “close friends” aren’t friends at all anymore.
Wake up gays! Our rights may be a fashionable thing to say that you’re supportive of, like Laura Bush, but when it comes to real help our rights are less important than jelly fish caught in Japanese fish nets.
Nobody gives a damn about equality legislation! We must sue for everything in federal court for our equality under the law.
Wake up!
I really disagree with the implication that the Bush’s friends shouldn’t be their friends simply because of the president’s stand on gay marriage in 2004. Obama is adamant that he’s against gay marriage, too.
I’d remind you that, the adjacent post in Instant Tea is a discharged marine pleading to President Obama to be faithful to him. This is while Obama offers lip service to the gay community on DADT while his administration actively defends the policy and continues to fire service members over it.
At the very core, I’d rather George Bush confess he wasn’t an ally and his actions resemble his spoken position, than have Obama promise us the world while our brothers and sisters continue to be fired – in the exact same manner they did under Bush – with Obama’s blessing.
I think people should be in charge of who their friends are, and the media shouldn’t be offering too much advice 🙂
I’m curious as to what his response to her was because he obviously didn’t listen to any of her advice.
Laura Bush is Dallas’ own Eva Braun. How can she live with that stain on humankind?
Very simple. Gay Marriage was and continues to be too juicy a social issue to rally the conservative base.
Furthermore, it was Bush’s chief political strategist and hired gun Karl Rove making the decisions, not George.
Laura asked George not to speak of gay marriage.
How about just asking him not to speak…..period…..
He should have asked him not to run for a second period…
Way to go Laura!
For the idiots “not getting the message”: in 2004, Republicans pushed to ban “gay marriage,” even pushing for a constitutional amendment. Yet George Bush was silent on the issue when, if anything, it was in his political favor to push the far-right position (which was then popular: for example, an anti-gay marriage amendment passed in Georgia in 2004 with 76% of the vote).
It’s clear that Laura Bush served as a “voice of reason” that led George not to push further right.
And for that, we should be thanking her, not drinking the far-left koolaid. Since when has Obama supported gay marriage? Still waiting for don’t ask, don’t tell to end.
M Streeter
We see George Bush hanging out with Bill Clinton. I can’t believe you would compare Laura Bush to Eva Braun. You expect to be treated right, yet you can’t get past this “us against them” simpleton mentality.
Gay people are, at most, 10% of the population, and thus need the support of about 45% of the non-gay population to form a majority. Anyone that wants to be for gay rights, we should support, not call names.
I have to agree with M Streeter: I often wondered why George Bush didn’t go further as he well could have on gay issues and now know that Laura Bush was the reason. We should give thanks to her and all our straight friends who we so desperately need if we are ever to receive full rights under law.
Why didn’t Bush go further in gay bashing alongside his party? How about because he didn’t have to.
Is that a plausible enough conclusion as worthy of Laura convincing him to have a shred of compassionate and respect for their gay acquaintances?