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.”