The newly-released Bush tapes paint the picture of a president who doesn’t really harbor sincere anti-gay animus.
Early on, though, Mr. Bush appeared most worried that Christian conservatives would object to his determination not to criticize gay people. “I think he wants me to attack homosexuals,” Mr. Bush said after meeting James Robison, a prominent evangelical minister in Texas.
But Mr. Bush said he did not intend to change his position. He said he told Mr. Robison: “Look, James, I got to tell you two things right off the bat. One, I’m not going to kick gays, because I’m a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?”
Later, he read aloud an aide’s report from a convention of the Christian Coalition, a conservative political group: “This crowd uses gays as the enemy. It’s hard to distinguish between fear of the homosexual political agenda and fear of homosexuality, however.”
“This is an issue I have been trying to downplay,” Mr. Bush said. “I think it is bad for Republicans to be kicking gays.”
Told that one conservative supporter was saying Mr. Bush had pledged not to hire gay people, Mr. Bush said sharply: “No, what I said was, I wouldn’t fire gays.”
Since Bush did not know he was being recorded, and there are plenty of embarrassing revelations on the Wead tapes, this is almost certainly an accurate reflection of the man’s true beliefs on the subject.
Some are arguing that the remarks reflect a president who, in his heart, is a tolerant man who harbors no ill will towards gays. I came away with a far different take — the remarks reflect a president who’ll exploit anti-gay bigotry for political gain, whether he embraces intolerance or not.
Indeed, in the months immediately following Bush’s comments to Wead about downplaying the issue and denouncing GOP attacks, what did Bush do? First, he told a group of evangelical activists that he, as president, would never “knowingly” hire a gay person. Shortly thereafter, candidate Bush refused to meet with Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group, because, as Bush put it, he didn’t “believe in group thought.”
What’s more, as president, Bush has not only endorsed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, but happily enjoyed the benefits of an RNC campaign mailing that told voters that Dems want to ban the Bible while allow gay couples to wed. Bush may have once felt that it’s “bad for Republicans to be kicking gays,” and he may even still believe it, but that never stopped him from trying to benefit directly from bigoted smears.
Matthew Yglesias captured the problem with Bush’s tack perfectly.
What’s so especially disgusting about the president’s opportunistic deployment of gay-bashing for political purposes is that, by all accounts and evidence, he doesn’t believe a word of it. As Andrew Sullivan said of the White House on just this point, they’re “closet tolerants” who know perfectly well that what they’re doing is wrong. When I meet people who, out of sincere conviction (usually religious) believe homosexuality is sinful and that public policy ought to be deployed to prevent this sinful behavior, I disagree with them, but understand that this sort of deep moral disagreement rooted in faith is a part of life.
When I meet people who, thanks to limited horizons in life, just get a vague “icky” feeling about gay people that they can’t seem to overcome, I think that’s unfortunate, but I realize that my own perspective in this matter is a question of contingent circumstance (not everyone grew up with liberal parents in lower Manhattan) and that I no doubt have my own blind spots. When you see someone who knows perfectly well that the view he’s adopted for political purposes is wrong, but who adopts it anyway out of cynical thirst for power, well, then, that’s just disgusting.
Exactly. Bush’s approach is the worst of all worlds. On a personal level, he’s tolerant and uncomfortable with anti-gay attacks, but as a leader of the nation, Bush is more than happy to exploit anti-gay animus as long as it helps him get ahead.
It would take courage and character for Bush to stand on principle against homophobia. Since he lacks both, that hasn’t happened.