Former first lady Laura Bush has asked
to be removed from a national gay marriage campaign launched this
week.
The $1 million ad campaign which
launched on Wednesday is being paid for by the Respect for Marriage
Coalition, which is co-chaired by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC),
the nation's largest gay rights advocate.
In the ad, Bush is heard telling CNN's
Larry King, “When couples are committed to each other and love each
other, then they ought to have the same sort of rights that everyone
has.”
(Related: Obama,
Dick Cheney featured in gay marriage ad.)
Anne MacDonald, a Bush spokeswoman,
told The
Dallas Morning News that the former first lady “did not
approve of her inclusion in this advertisement nor is she associated
with the group that made the ad in any way.”
“When she became aware of the
advertisement last night, we requested that the group remove her from
it,” MacDonald said.
The Respect for Marriage Coalition has
said that the television ad will be broadcast on network Sunday
morning news shows and print ads will begin running in the next week.