Dick Cheney and Laura Bush plead support for marriage equality
You don't have to have to be liberal to support same-sex unions. Updated: Bush asks to be removed from ad VIDEO
Topics: Video, LGBT, Marriage equality, Gay Marriage, Laura Bush, Colin Powell, Barack Obama, Dick Cheny, Brendon Ayanbadejo, Respect for Marriage Coalition, National Organization for Marriage, Editor's Picks, Life News
Update: On Wednesday, Bush spokeswoman Anne MacDonald said Mrs. Bush “did not approve of her inclusion in this advertisement nor is she associated with the group that made the ad in any way” and that “we requested that the group remove her from it.”
For an issue so heavily debated, so emotionally fraught, so politically polarizing, it turns out that same-sex marriage is shaping up to be one of the most unifying, bipartisan-friendly battles to come along in decades. And a new campaign is out to prove that equality isn’t just for liberals.
It’s hard to believe that just four short years ago, the idea of marriage equality in America was still so unusual, so outside the box, that its opponents were likening it to an angry weather system. Brrrrrrr … Scary!
Since then, we’ve seen same-sex marriage approved in several more states and the District of Columbia; we’ve had public figures like Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Johnny Weir announce their engagements with nary a raised eyebrow. And, significantly, we’ve had our president state his unequivocal support for marriage equality, and then watched him get reelected, and become the first president to mention it in his inauguration speech. It was just last month that Barack Obama told the world, “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law. For if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”
The quest is far from over. Last year, poultry purveyor Chik-fil-A started a culture war by declaring its allegiance to “the biblical definition of the family unit.” Across the country, same-sex marriage is still being shot down in most states – most recently in New Jersey, just this past Friday. And next month, the “Protect Marriage” march will descend on our nation’s capital.
Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.






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