Bush vs lgbtq
George W. Bush on Queer Marriage, Immigration, and Why Obama Kept His Terrorism Policies
President George W. Bush cautioned against criticizing gay couples, saying in an interview on "This Week" that you shouldn't criticize others "until you've examined your own heart."
Bush had waded into the revitalized same-sex marriage debate last week - if only barely - in a comment to a reporter in Zambia, who asked whether homosexual marriage conflicts with Christian values.
"I shouldn't be taking a speck out of someone else's eye when I have a log in my own," Bush said last week.
In an interview in Tanzania with ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl, the former president explained his comment further.
"I meant it's very important for people not to be overly critical of someone else until you've examined your own heart," Bush told Karl.
As president, Bush opposed gay marriage, and Republicans pushed ballot measures to ban it at the state level. The topic has seen rejuvenated discussion after the Supreme Court overturned the federal ban on same-sex marriage, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
On another hot political topic - immigration - Bush said he thinks a major
A Brief Chronology of Presidential LGBTQIA+ Civil Rights Achievements
To celebrate Presidents' Day, we at Seattle Pride are honoring the words and actions of executive leaders who have celebrated us. It is hard to go back more than a few years and see anything but bare pursuits of ‘tolerance’ or outright silence when considering LGBTQIA+ Americans, but today we pay homage to the few presidents who have championed improved conditions for our LGBTQIA+ siblings.
Lyndon B. Johnson (sort of):
Decades after passage, Barack Obama would laud the 1964 Civil Rights Act as instrumental in opening the door for other many other anti-discrimination laws and judicial decisions, most recently Bostock v Clayton Co, GA, which codified employment anti-discrimination for gay and transgender Americans.
However, the administration itself was not affectionate to this idea. In a 1965 letter to LGBTQIA+ forebear Frank Kameny, VP Humphrey insisted that the Civil Rights Behave was ‘not relevant to the problems of homosexuals’.
Hence, LBJ can best be described as an accidental LGBTQIA+ advocate. Thanks (sort of)!
Bill Clinton (not really, though)
Bill Clinton was a politically nuanced leader, allowing h
Bush on Gay Rights Issues
Jan. 17 -- Many gays and lesbians say they have no illusions about where President-elect George W. Bush stands when it comes to their rights. So far, they don't like what they spot.
But many agree it's unclear how Bush will deal with these issues when he reaches the White House.
During his 1994 campaign for the governorship, Bush defended the state's sodomy law, which makes sexual activity between gay adults illegal, as a "symbolic gesture of traditional values."
It is commonly believed that Bush derailed a Texas hate-crime bill in 1999 because it included protections based on sexual orientation. Also that year, Bush supported a measure that banned gay couples from becoming foster parents or from adopting foster children.
"The short answer is that it is unclear," said David Smith, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, one of the nation's largest gay rights organizations, when asked how the Bush administration might treat gay rights issues.
But many, including Smith, say they find foreboding Bush's Texas record and some of his recent picks for his administration's Cabinet,
Cato at Liberty Cato at Liberty
Dan Balz writes in the Washington Post, as many reporters have this week,
In 2004, Republicans used ballot initiatives barring same-sex marriage to spur turnout among their conservative voters. That tactic helped then-President George W. Bush triumph reelection.
But did it? I argued in 2006 that it didn’t:
It’s true that states with such initiatives voted for Bush at higher rates than other states, but that’s mostly because the bans were proposed in conservative states. In fact, Bush’s share of the vote rose just slightly less in the marriage-ban states than in the other states: up 2.6 percent in the states with marriage bans on the ballot, up 2.9 percent in the other states.
Political scientist Simon Jackman of Stanford has more here (pdf). He concludes that the marriage referenda tended to grow turnout but not to increase Bush’s share of the vote. And in a county-by-county investigation of Ohio, he found no evident relationship between increased turnout, support for the marriage bar , and increased encourage for Bush.
Matthew Dowd made the identical point yesterday:
Speaking from experienc
Bush Scorns Gay Movement Month
June is Same-sex attracted Pride Month, and as a homosexual woman American, I'm not in much of a mood to celebrate.
President Bush has been silent on gay-related issues. And he has made his disdain for homosexual woman, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans even more apparent by having his spokesman announce on the first day of June that the White House would not formally acknowledge Gay Pride Month.
This is a slap in the face. Lgbtq+ Pride Month commemorates the Stonewall Rebellion in New York City that ignited the modern gay-rights movement on June 27, 1969.
Both gay and straight celebrate Self-acceptance month with speakers, festivals and parades. In Minneapolis, where I live, our annual Pride celebration attracts more than 20,000 people of all backgrounds.
Bush's refusal to recognize Pride month is merely the latest in an appalling record on gay and woman loving woman civil rights. As governor of Texas, he supported a Texas law allowing the state to take adopted children away from lgbtq+ and lesbian couples and place the kids with heterosexual couples. He also opposed modifying the state's law on hate crimes to include sexual orientation.
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