Publicist Howard Bragman and gay
activist Dan Savage aren't much impressed with Barbara Bush's gay
marriage advocacy.
Bush, the daughter of former president
George W. Bush, urged New Yorkers to support gay marriage in a
22-second ad released by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's
largest gay rights advocate.
“New York is about fairness and
equality and everyone should have the right to marry the person that
they love,” Bush said in the video. (The video is embedded in the
right panel of this page.)
Appearing on HLN's Joy Behar Show
on Tuesday, Bragman, who is married to Chuck O'Donnell in California
and runs the Los Angeles-based PR firm Fifteen Minutes, said the Bush
family could go to hell.
“Laura Bush comes out with her book
and she said, 'Oh, I had lots of gay friends. It wasn't a big deal.'
George Bush said, 'Yeah, it wasn't such a big deal.' And this
really irks me. I'll tell you why. If they truly believe in their
heart – for Biblical or whatever stupid reasons – in this
homophobia, good for them. But they're all acknowledging it was just
political expediency and you know kids were killing themselves, kids
were being bullied. They did real damage.”
“And I hope there's a special place
in hell for those people,” he added. “I really do.”
Bragman was referring to Bush's 2004
re-election campaign, which was heavily doused with anti-gay
rhetoric. That year, eleven states approved gay marriage bans with
the backing of the Republican Party.
Savage added that Bush is not an
elected official and her views don't necessarily reflect those of the
Republican Party.
“Those useful, pole-smoking idiots at
GOProud will point to Barbara Bush's position on marriage equality as
proof that today's GOP is whole lot less anti-gay than yesterday's
GOP,” Savage
wrote Tuesday on his blog, referring
to gay GOP group GOProud. “What Cindy McCain, Megan McCain,
and the Bush twins think of gay marriage – what all the relatives
of GOP elected officials think of gay marriage – is pretty close to
irrelevant. If you want to know where the GOP is on gay rights, pay
attention to what actual Republican elected officials are doing.”