- Barbara Pierce Bush with her father,
WASHINGTON – Sometimes the LGBT community finds support from the most unlikely of quarters!
Barbara Pierce Bush is the elder of the fraternal twin daughters (the other is Jenna Hager, née Bush) of the 43rd U.S. President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush, and the granddaughter of the 41st U.S. President George H. W. Bush. On Jan. 31, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) released a new video in the New Yorkers for Marriage Equality campaign featuring Barbara Bush.
In the video she says, “I’m Barbara Bush and I’m a New Yorker for marriage equality. New York is about fairness and equality and everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love. Join us.” The video can be viewed at hrc.org/NY4marriage.
“Americans from all walks of life are increasingly supportive of the basic right to equal marriage. Barbara Bush’s advocacy shows that equality knows no party label,” HRC President Joe Solmonese said.
The video comes on the heels of two New York polls showing a majority of New Yorkers support marriage equality. A Siena Research Institute Poll earlier this month found 57 percent of New Yorkers support marriage for same-sex couples and another poll last week by Quinnipiac University had support at 56 percent.
Barbara Bush joins prominent Republicans like her mother Laura Bush as well as Dick Cheney and Ted Olson as supporters of marriage equality. Her position also reflects her generation with 68 percent of New Yorkers between the ages of 18-34 supporting marriage for same- sex couples.
The New Yorkers for Marriage Equality campaign is centered on video testimonials from New Yorkers who support the right of same-sex couples to marry. The ads are running online with possible placement elsewhere when the legislative fight for marriage equality heats up in Albany.
To date, HRC has released videos from Barbara Bush, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, Fran Drescher, Moby, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Julianne Moore and Kenneth Cole.
