Laura Bush And Dick Cheney To Appear In Ads In Favor Of Gay Marriage

A group in favor of same-sex marriage is going to start running ads featuring two prominent Republicans:

A pro-gay marriage group is set to launch a $1 million media campaign in support of same-sex nuptials, with full-page ads in several major newspapers and a television spot featuring President Barack Obama, former first lady Laura Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Respect for Marriage Coalition, co-chaired by the Human Rights Campaign, is behind the ad campaign, which begins with TV spots airing on national cable and the Sunday-morning talk shows, along with ads in POLITICO, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, officials with the group said.

The goal of the spot is to show voices from both sides of the political aisle supporting gay marriage, an issue that saw statewide victories in Washington, Maryland, Maine and Minnesota on Election Day last November.

The spot doesn’t feature fresh sit-down interviews but uses clips from Bush, Cheney, Obama and former Secretary of State Colin Powell discussing gay marriage.

In the ad, Bush is quoted as saying, “When couples are committed to each other and love each other, then they ought to have the same sort of rights that everyone has.”

The times are changing……

 

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. mantis says:

    Far too little, far too late, assholes. Nobody is forgetting how Bush was re-elected in 2004 on thoroughly anti-gay campaign platform. Who cares if these bigot-enablers have had a change of heart now that they are no longer in positions of power?

  2. michael reynolds says:

    Good for Laura.

  3. Mark Ivey says:

    Dick Cheney is such a RINO now. WooT

  4. legion says:

    Well, if the current crowd of neo-neo-cons hadn’t already sworn off the W Bush administration as a fever dream, this will surely do the trick. Brace for a fresh round of brainless stenographers and mouthpieces pretending that a Democrat was President between Clinton and Obama…

  5. swbarnes2 says:

    In the ad, Bush is quoted as saying, “When couples are committed to each other and love each other, then they ought to have the same sort of rights that everyone has.”

    No one is going to be persuaded by this. It doesn’t touch the premise that motivates anti-gay policies.

    It’s also pretty sleazy to call Cheney a supporter of gay marriage. I’ve seen him say a bunch of wishy-washy stuff about how people ought to be able to have whatever kind of “relationships” they want, but supporting same-sex marriage means you believe the government ought to recognize same-sex marriages as legally legitimate, and judging Cheney by his words, he doesn’t support that. And why should he? His daughter is privileged enough that she will never materially suffer from not having a legal marriage.

  6. swbarnes2 says:

    @legion:

    Well, if the current crowd of neo-neo-cons hadn’t already sworn off the W Bush administration as a fever dream, this will surely do the trick.

    They don’t care what Laura Bush thinks. I don’t either. She’s not a policymaker, is she? Cheney was, and now that that’s over, now he wants to change things? Powell could have pushed for repeal of DADT while he had some influence, and now that he can’t make policy, now all of a sudden he sees the light?

    Sorry, I know I’m supposed to deeply care about the real souls of Republicans, instead of judging them by what they actually accomplish, but I just can’t.

  7. wr says:

    Shorter Dick Cheney: “Sure, I don’t care if fags marry, now that there’s no more immediate political advantage for me in claiming they’ll destroy the nation.”

    Maybe he thinks this conversion will keep him out of hell.

  8. michael reynolds says:

    My approach is to welcome all converts, even late ones. Politics is addition.

  9. anjin-san says:

    My approach is to welcome all converts, even late ones.

    Second that. Some pretty vile racists eventually came around.

  10. Tsar Nicholas says:

    Politics makes for strange bedfellows.

    Of course what’s surreal about this is the inevitable lunacy by certain deranged liberals who reflexively hate Republicans with such vigor, so mindlessly, they have to project their various issues, even when said Republicans decide to support one of their pet issues. Cognitive dissociation.

    Legally speaking I for one always have thought that gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry, but not Constitutionally. I don’t have an issue if State A or the voters of State A want to ban such marriages. For example California’s voters, most notably its black demographic. And on the flip side of that coin if I still lived in New York I would not have an issue with legalized same-sex marriages there. To each their own.

    Practically speaking, however, for well over a decade, I’ve been of the opinion and offered the opinion that the gay and lesbian community by pushing for this is making a colossal error. A community which forever skated scott free all of a sudden will be hit by the ton of bricks of divorce court, alimony, community property, child support, custody disputes, will contests, partitions, interpleaders, property settlements, forced will shares, etc. Good luck and good night.

  11. LC says:

    A community which forever skated scott free all of a sudden will be hit by the ton of bricks of divorce court, alimony, community property, child support, custody disputes, will contests, partitions, interpleaders, property settlements, forced will shares, etc.

    Can gay couples not have community property, custody issues, will contests, property settlements etc, without being married? Do you even listen to yourself?

  12. An Interested Party says:

    Cognitive dissociation.

    Still projecting I see…

    A community which forever skated scott free…

    Oh yes, losing a job for no other reason than one’s sexual orientation, not being able to adopt children, not having spousal rights with one’s partner, being treated by most of society like a freak and a pervert…oh yes, for so much of the past, all of this was just “skating by”…thank you for proving yet again what an idiot and an asshole you really are…

  13. Laurence Bachmann says:

    @mantis: I’m gay, and I care. Hate him all you want but she is respected and admired by lots of people who dontcurrently support gay marriage and her voices an important one. She will change minds. And isnt that the point? Or do just enjoy hating so much you refuse toilet go?

  14. Scott O says:

    50 years from now conservative talk show hosts will be claiming that Republicans were always at the forefront of the gay rights movement and that Democrats were the ones that wanted gay people to be treated as second class citizens.

  15. An Interested Party says:

    50 years from now conservative talk show hosts will be claiming that Republicans were always at the forefront of the gay rights movement and that Democrats were the ones that wanted gay people to be treated as second class citizens.

    Of course they will…after all, conservatives played this game before with the Civil Rights Movement…

  16. David M says:

    Do we know if they actually gave their permission to be in the ads? It would be a lot more meaningful if they weren’t re-using old interview footage.

  17. Rick Almeida says:
  18. rudderpedals says:

    @Rick Almeida: Damn, that was fast. And weak. Weak as water. Looks like the gays can suxxor. Stepford wife comes to mind.

  19. G.A.Phillips says:

    My approach is to welcome all converts, even late ones. Politics is addition

    lol, Harry, did you mean Idoits?

  20. Rick Almeida says:

    @G.A.Phillips:

    Still barely literate, I see.

  21. G.A.Phillips says:

    Still barely literate, I see.

    Yup, but still not stupid enough to believe in made up crap like gay marriage, or what ever the **** gay rights are.

  22. mantis says:

    @Laurence Bachmann:

    I’m gay, and I care.

    Do you still care now that Bush has asked to be removed from the ad?

    Hate him all you want but she is respected and admired by lots of people who dontcurrently support gay marriage and her voices an important one. She will change minds. And isnt that the point? Or do just enjoy hating so much you refuse toilet go?

    I’m not foolish enough to trust people like Bush and Cheney. They are not on our side. They will not help our cause. Even if they personally believe in gay rights, they are too beholden to bigots to do anything substantive about it.

    Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be proven wrong about this. Until then, I do not trust those who have earned no trust.

  23. mantis says:

    @Laurence Bachmann:

    Just look at G.A.’s comment above. That’s who the Bushes and Cheneys serve, people who believe gay rights are “made up crap.”

  24. legion says:

    @G.A.Phillips: That avatar of yours always makes me think you’re a character in a Fairly Tale, like “The Laziest Troll” or “The Myth of Happiness in a Republican World”.

  25. Sejanus says:
  26. G.A.Phillips says:

    Just look at G.A.’s comment above. That’s who the Bushes and Cheneys serve, people who believe gay rights are “made up crap.”

    lol I said gay marriage is made up crap, and it is. No one will tell me what gay rights mean! I don’t think any one can.And I don’t give a **** who gets hicthed, I just want the goverment not to be involved…jeeeez!!!!!

    That avatar of yours always makes me think you’re a character in a Fairly Tale, like “The Laziest Troll” or “The Myth of Happiness in a Republican World”.

    🙂

  27. Scott O says:

    @G.A.Phillips:
    You need better messaging dude.