Gee W. Bh’s Dghter Barbara Endors Gay Marriage

Contents:

• BH’S DGHTER, A BREAK, ENDORS GAY MARRIAGE
• BH DGHTER BARBARA COM OUT FOR GAY MARRIAGE
• GEE W. BH'S FOTTEN GAY-RIGHTS HISTORY
• BH'S DGHTER THROWS SUPPORT BEHD GAY MARRIAGE
• BARBARA BH, DGHTER OF EX-PRINT GEE W. BH, SUPPORTS GAY MARRIAGE
• EX-PRINT BH'S DGHTER SUPPORTS GAY MARRIAGE
• GEE W. BH’S DGHTER BARBARA ENDORS GAY MARRIAGE
• BARBARA BH, DGHTER OF PRINT GEE W. BH, ENDORS GAY MARRIAGE
• BH DGHTER ENDORS GAY MARRIAGE NEW VIO
• BH ON GAY RIGHTS ISSU

BH’S DGHTER, A BREAK, ENDORS GAY MARRIAGE

Bh, will endorse same-sex marriage on Tuday, publicly breakg ranks wh a father who, as print, phed for a nstutnal amendment banng such Bh, 29, has taped a vio llg on New York to legalize gay marriage. Gay rights advot have been quick to seize on the generatnal spl as evince that the acceptance of same-sex marriage is bld to party affiliatn and fay valu.

But for years, those close to her say, she has surround herself wh gay iends — at Yale, where she was an unrgraduate, and New York Cy, where she worked the sign world. The Human Rights Campaign, a natnal gay rights group that ma the vio, plans to show Saturday at an annual gala New York Cy.

A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 14 of the New York edn wh the headle: Dghter Of Bh Endors Gay Marriage.

BH DGHTER BARBARA COM OUT FOR GAY MARRIAGE

Like dozens of other gay lleagu the Bh Whe Hoe, many of them closeted, Leve had been sure that Bh himself was personally tolerant even if the GOP was not—and unfortable wh gay-bashg as a way to w electns.

But this was also the print who had ma batg AIDS Ai a personal e (later, at Leve’s urgg, he would even rate the Whe Hoe North Porti wh a giant red ribbon to mark World AIDS Day), who had met wh prevly ostracized gay Republin lears and whose hard-le nservative vice print had an openly gay dghter. A few months later, one of his gay iends who had also worked the Whe Hoe sat down ont of Facebook and unted the Bh Whe Hoe staffers he knew to be gay.

Alberto Gonzal, the former Bh Whe Hoe unsel and attorney general, for example, says he never knew dozens of gays had served on the Whe Hoe staff. Evertz says Bh’s polil gu, Karl Rove, for a time would only give him clearance for public appearanc if he promised not to be billed as the first openly gay appotee a Republin admistratn.

GEE W. BH'S FOTTEN GAY-RIGHTS HISTORY

It was only much later that Evertz learned Hernanz, who had been wh Bh sce servg as his driver and personal ai the early 1990s, was gay. In recent months, I’ve reported extensively on life the closet of the Bh Whe Hoe, and a number of his former ais are quoted on the rerd this story for the first time about their experienc as gay Republins an admistratn that was perhaps the last of the era when stutnalized discrimatn agast gays and lbians was still legal, if creasgly owned upon. At the time, seemed to be great polics for Bh: Comg out agast gay marriage, as Rove bragged his 2010 book, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative the Fight, “benefed my ndidate” and “helped reelect him” 2004.

BH'S DGHTER THROWS SUPPORT BEHD GAY MARRIAGE

But sce a Supreme Court cisn last year, 19 stat and the District of Columbia have legalized gay marriage, jt the oute that Bh and his team fought to prevent, and a clear majory of Amerins—a rerd high of 55 percent this year—now tell pollsters they support this right. In retirement Texas, Bh himself has remaed largely silent about this polil sea change—even as his wife, Lra, exprsed support for same-sex marriage a televisn terview, his dghter Barbara taped a vio  support of legalizg gay marriage New York and even his father, the first Print Bh, served as a wns at a same-sex marriage. For some of his gay ais, was a stggle to rencile the cency they ually saw up close wh the equent remrs, both large and small, that theirs was a party very publicly mted to the view that they were not entled to the same legal protectns as other Amerins.

Mehlman me out publicly 2010 and renounced his past work agast gay marriage; he went on to help the group that sponsored one of last year’s gay rights s the Supreme Court.

BARBARA BH, DGHTER OF EX-PRINT GEE W. BH, SUPPORTS GAY MARRIAGE

But for all his public regrets, there rema many gay Republins who rent Mehlman’s failure, as the hight-rankg gay person the Bh Whe Hoe, to speak out at the time he uld have ma a difference. “He was the only one the room wh the print and Karl [Rove]” when strategi for stokg anti-gay marriage sentiment were oked up, a former RNC staffer told me.

Other gay ais told me of siar nflicts between the duty they felt they had to serve the print and their own feelgs of alienatn and betrayal. Bh started out as perhaps the most gay-iendly Republin print ever, an astonishg fact when you nsir that, his first year office, 71 percent of Republins thought homosexual behavr was morally wrong, acrdg to Gallup.

” The party’s platform that year might have talked about the sancty of tradnal marriage as a foundatn of Amerin mocracy, but this was nohels a print who, a few months before nailg down his party’s nomatn 2000, met At wh a dozen gay Republin lears, proclaimg afterward, “I am a better person for the meetg. And even when his own reelectn was on the le four years later, he went out of his way to endorse civil unns—though he omted the fact when mpaigng agast gay marriage. “When you say, ‘I don’t re if you’re gay, ’ you’re basilly sayg, ‘I don’t re about somethg you are or the sence of who you are, ’” Bh was told, acrdg to Evertz.

EX-PRINT BH'S DGHTER SUPPORTS GAY MARRIAGE

The group also told Bh that the Texas Republin Party was latg s anti-gay rhetoric and that he should avoid s nventn that year.

” Both the Cheneys and the Bh were personally grac to members of their staff they knew to be gay and weled their partners generoly, acrdg to everyone I spoke wh.

Cheney even said publicly that “people should be ee to enter to any kd of relatnship they want to, ” argug that gay marriage should be left up to the stat. ” Berkowz says that when he was “outed” by blogger Michael Rogers, whose mpaign to publicize what he saw as the hypocrisy of gay Republin operativ was chronicled the 2009 documentary Outrage, Bh staffers flocked to show their support.

GEE W. BH’S DGHTER BARBARA ENDORS GAY MARRIAGE

Lghg, Evertz says he imaged the print’s receptnist mt have been gog down the list of Kennedy Center shows, g to that night and gog, “Gay Men’s Chos of Washgton? Although former staffers say they never believed Bh personally had anythg agast gay people, many still experienced episos of gnive dissonance, pecially when the print went to mpaign mo—and all of sudn started phg for the nstutnal amendment banng gay marriage. ” Bis, Berkowz believed Bh’s Democratic rival John Kerry, who did not, fact, support gay marriage that mpaign, was no better on gay rights.

So a flier was drafted that clud an image of one man kneelg to propose to another and verbiage to the effect that if nservative voters didn’t turn out, gay marriage would be “allowed” while the Bible would be “banned.

BARBARA BH, DGHTER OF PRINT GEE W. BH, ENDORS GAY MARRIAGE

If no one thought twice about Gurley beg gay before, his prospective new boss did md the tails of his profile once Rogers ma public. The nventnal wisdom among Bh’s crics, and even some supporters, is that the print phed the nstutnal amendment to ban gay marriage ls om eply held prciple than as part of Karl Rove’s strategy to rile up the Republin base at tim of polil weakns: Early the 2004 reelectn mpaign, when Bh was weighed down by the Iraq telligence disaster, and then June 2006, when ntrol of Congrs was slippg away the midterm electns.

BH DGHTER ENDORS GAY MARRIAGE NEW VIO

Still, Rove sists, “Neher Bh nor I regret his stand on gay marriage, ” which he argu was an effort to block the “social revolutnary act” of overturng the time-honored fn of marriage. Gonzal says he don’t know whether was his advice or Rove’s that moved Bh to propose the nstutnal amendment banng gay marriage. Which is the pot ma by Charl Francis, a public affairs executive om Texas who anized the At 12 meetg wh Bh but left the GOP over gay rights a uple of years ago.

“History needs to unrstand how a print wh his heart and his fay and iends and many gay people his admistratn—how they uld have so totally disavowed gay Ameri, ” Francis says.

BH ON GAY RIGHTS ISSU

But McConnell says Bh’s posn on gay marriage was a reasonable batn of his personal ncept of “moraly” and the central GOP ncept of owng on an activist judiciary. McConnell matter-of-factly told me he likely helped wre Bh’s 2004 remarks endorsg the nstutnal amendment to ban gay marriage.