Worst. President. Ever.
Everyone knows Dubya’s awful, but what’s his legacy with the gay and lesbian community? This week, Bush signed into law the Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act, which make makes it mandatory for businesses to roll over retirement benefits to a same-sex partner in the event of the employee’s death. Is it cause to reassess his relationship with the gay and lesbian community, or a last ditch stab at whitewashing over his homophobic administration?
After eight years, George W. Bush is going home to Texas this month, leaving behind an economy in shambles, a legal system which permits torture, a nation appreciably worse than the one he inherited, a war whose mission is still unaccomplished. He’s also abandoning broken people of New Orleans, the unemployed schoolteachers in towns gone bust from the mortgage crisis and parents of soldiers killed in a war begun on false premises that lowered our nation’s standing across the globe and did nothing to bring justice to the killers who orchestrated 9/11.
Bush believes future generations will judge him kinder than his contemporaries. Of course, the President and his administration have made an art out of failed prognostication, from promises of being greeted as liberators to the surety of weapons of mass destruction and there’s no indication that the President’s prescience or wisdom has improved over his final years in the White House. Certainly, Bush has done some good. India has become a close and useful ally under his watch. Bush’s Hawaiian Marine Reserve National Park is our largest, even if it’s mostly underwater. But for gays and lesbians, how does it all add up? Was Bush nothing but negative, or did he do enough good here and there to make his legacy more of a mixed bag. Here are the highlights and well, mostly lowlights of Bush 43’s gay legacy:
Early Openness
It’s hard to remember that Bush’s mandate walking into Washington was to be inclusive, and early on, Bush showed promise. The Office of National AIDS Policy had an openly gay man running it and federal employees retained their same-sex partner benefits. But it was all downhill from there.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
No Joy in Prideville
Bush refused to officially recognize Pride Month as his predecessor, Bill Clinton did.
Bush Press Room Gay Escort Friendly!
Capitol Hill Blue wrote at the time:
James Dale Guckert, aka Jeff Gannon, infiltrated the White House press corps as a so-called journalist working for two GOP-backed web sites. He quit after some left-wing blogs outed him but “ like most Washington scandals“ the story gets juicier.
The bloggers revealed Guckert had registered a number of web site domain names with gay themes, including hotmilitarystud.com. Guckert admitted registering the names but claimed he never put up any web sites with gay themes.
Like so many who shill for Bush’s White House, Guckert is a liar.
Paul Leddy, a California Web designer, says Guckert contacted him in an America Online chat room in 1999 and contracted with him to create a gay escort web site, paying $200, plus $50 in monthly maintenance fees. Checks to pay the fees came from Bedrock Corp., a company also listed as the owner of Guckert’s blog, jeffgannon.com. Leddy says Gannon submitted nude photos of himself for posting on the site.
Another of Guckert’s web sites offered his services as a male escort for $200 an hour or $1200 a night. Guckert described himself as “military, muscular, masculine and discrete.” (His misspelling, not ours).”
Support for Federal Marriage Amendment
In February of 2004, Bush walked into the Roosevelt Room and called for a Constitutional ban on gay marriage, saying:
” After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence, and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization. Their actions have created confusion on an issue that requires clarity.
On a matter of such importance, the voice of the people must be heard. Activist courts have left the people with one recourse. If we are to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in America. Decisive and democratic action is needed, because attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country.
The Constitution says that full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts and records and judicial proceedings of every other state. Those who want to change the meaning of marriage will claim that this provision requires all states and cities to recognize same-sex marriages performed anywhere in America. Congress attempted to address this problem in the Defense of Marriage Act, by declaring that no state must accept another state’s definition of marriage. My administration will vigorously defend this act of Congress.
Yet there is no assurance that the Defense of Marriage Act will not, itself, be struck down by activist courts. In that event, every state would be forced to recognize any relationship that judges in Boston or officials in San Francisco choose to call a marriage. Furthermore, even if the Defense of Marriage Act is upheld, the law does not protect marriage within any state or city.
For all these reasons, the Defense of Marriage requires a constitutional amendment. “
The move was pure politics, giving conservative Republicans a talking point to latch onto in an election year. Since then, the amendment, which has about as much chance of being enacted as Bush showing up in a Dallas gay bar next year does, has been a convenient social conservative Big Rock Candy Mountain to be hauled out whenever the base needs a little firing up. But even as political theatre, Bush’s call for the amendment constitutes the worst ever sort of gay bashing to come out of the White House.
A Lasting Legacy Combating AIDS
The one area where Bush’s efforts have clearly made an impact is in the world of HIV/AIDS treatment in Africa. AIDS is not a gay problem, but a universal problem. But when you think back to Reagan’s silence during the 80s, Bush’s commitment to getting HIV/AIDS medications and treatments available to Africa is both obviously important and something the gay community ought to celebrate:
Five years after Bush committed $15 billion to launch the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the program is being touted as that rarest of Bush administration success stories – one largely undiminished by major setbacks even amid lingering controversy over some of its elements.
Since 2003, the program known as PEPFAR has provided compassionate care to 10 million HIV/AIDS sufferers – including four million AIDS orphans – in Africa and elsewhere overseas.
More than 2.1 million people are now receiving retroviral drugs to combat their infections, up from a mere 50,000 people who had access to the life-saving medications in 2003. More than 240,000 children have been born in Africa free of HIV infection because mothers received drugs that blocked transmission of the deadly virus.
Perhaps most significant, however, Bush this summer secured congressional re-authorization of the program for another five years, tripling the funding to $48 billion. Included in the amount is $9 billion to battle malaria and tuberculosis, the leading killer of HIV-infected Africans. The money is targeted at 13 “focus” countries in Africa, plus Vietnam and Haiti.”
So which is it? Does Bush’s lasting legacy of fighting HIV/AIDS outweigh the political fagbashing that came out of the White House for eight years? Do we congratulate the President on getting one thing right while ruining everything else? Or are we so overcome with apathy and a desire to move past our long national nightmare that Bush, for good or ill, ought to be ignored for a very very long time?
Rock
Are you serious?
Bush is a complete piece of shit.
porsha
NO! He should be incarcerated!
Michael W.
None of this compares to Barack Obama inviting Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural. George W. Bush never lended his bully pulpit to such bigotry. Soon we’ll be nostalgic for the days of the Bush administration and Japhy is laying the groundwork for that nostalgia with this post. We’ll look back and wish we could’ve given him a third term after a few years of Obama and Rick Warren united as BFF, pushing gay rights back a few decades.
At least you know where you stand with Republicans.
Mark
The cumulative negative effect of the Bush administration on the GLBT community will take years, if not decades, to erase. He has, in effect, promoted intolerance and has actively promoted misperceptions and stereotypes of the GLBT community for political gain. It’s difficult to think you are serious in asking this question.
ggreen
Bush’s AIDS relief program was nothing more than paying for Christian groups to go to Africa and convert people by denying them AIDS drugs if they didn’t convert and promise to use abstinence as the primary means of preventing HIV transmission. It has been a disaster for everyone but the corrupt African governments and people like Rick Warren they always get paid.
B. J. Hoover
Mike W — Are you @#$%@#$ kidding me?! Let’s talk about “faith-based initiatives” which funneled taxpayer money directly into megachurches and asshole preachers much like, and worse than, Rick Warren. Granted, the Warren thing in my opinion was a bonehead move, but this is making my head hurt, this idea that one pandering move by Obama can hold a candle to the attacks we put up with under the Bush/Rove cabal.
CsmMnky
re: #3, I think Obama’s inauguration with Rick Warren etc. has a lot of symbolism to who he is: he will do whatever it is to gain power, which is what politicians do. If we were not a minority with so much historic censure, even the W would have been courting our vote by promising us equality. I really don’t see how Obama will keep his promise to us–no civil unions, nothing. And DOMA, DADT, etc. etc. no go.
The Gay Numbers
Under Bush, “gay” officially became a part of the GOP’s Southern Strategy as first created by Nixon in the 1970s and perfected in the 80s by Ronald Reagan.
For those unfamilar, the Southern Strategy first ran on the anti-black resentment that whites felt as a result of the black civil rights movement. It had as its central tenets, “blacks, guns and national defense.” It’s morphed over the years to “crimes, guns and national defense” and “Bible, taxes and national defense” etc.
The new variant under Bush became “gays, taxes and nationald defense.” Under Bush, therefore, it’s not about the legislation that’s been passed federally. It’s moral persausion of the office of the Presidency that matters. He effectively made us target numer 1. Remember Rove and others in 2004 ran as a part of their strategy anti-gay bans in several battleground states specifically to win votes of evangelicals.
The upside to us being a part of the GOP’s Southern Strategy is that its forcing social change at a rate faster than it would have occured otherwise. We have went from civil unions not being a possibly in most parts of the country to it being more likely. We are despite the present set backs being forced to get up off our asses to fight bigotry. In many ways, although not his intent, the law of unintended consequences has resulted in a shift that may put the gay communities by on the track for the first time in decades to politically push for first class citizenship in this country.
The ultimate irony is that, just like with race before it as a part of the Southern Strategy, Bush’s GOP to demonize us may put such light on the bigotry that we may obtain more by being in the spotlight than by not.
Landon Bryce
I think the worst damage done to gay people by the Bush administration is unmentioned in this article. Bigotry against us informed policy in virtually every part of the government. CDC policy misinformed deliberately because of moral judgments about gay sex. Sex education has become more and more bigoted against us. Animus against us was a job requirement for federal prosecutors hired by Monica Goodling! The Bushies had an ideological rationale for every decision, and hating us is part of that ideology. It will take a much more fierce advocate than your messiah is proving to be to begin undoing this damage.
Flex
@Rock: I agree whole-heartedly. Bush is a piece of shit! I’ll begin in 2002 with the Christian Coalition’s attempt to repeal “sexual orientation” from the human rights ordinance in Miami Dade County. Both Bush and his disgusting brother JEB didn’t see the need for it to be there. In 2003 theTexas Sodomy Case meets the United States Supreme Court. If shithead had his way, sodomy laws would be constitutional. Then, the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizes Gay marriage, and Bush begins his tirade on constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage. He doesn’t believe we should be in the military. He doesn’t believe “sexual orientation” should be federally protected because according to him, discrimination doesn’t exist. His blind ignorance, and hypocrisy are an abomination. I hope he falls off of his bike and breaks his neck! The same goes for his rotten brother, Jeb!
Rick Heintz
While what he did for those in Africa is wonderful, I still can’t figure out why HIV/AIDS organizations are still underfunded here in the states and we’re still teaching abstinence instead of safe sex. Oh wait… He is saving heterosexuals over there and here it’s still considered a “gay” disease. Now I get it!
Burn the piece of shit at the stake!
BrianPrince
What hypocrites we find in the media! I’ve only been reading a short while, but I’m quite confident that as long as Bush as been the president, the scribes at Queerty have dragged him, kicking and screaming, through the fairy dust of the enchanted forest…
and now, you pull a Mad Hatter, and scream, “Change places,” expecting people to forget that Bush, still disheveled by his ‘vacation’ of sorts, which has left him covered in glitter and the faint smell of lavender… has done so little for the queer community… because you’re able to compile a list?
What hypocrites we find in the media!
seitan-on-a-stick
GGreen had the Right Answer. You go to the Top of the Class. BTW – there are no wrong answers except anything that implies Bush was the least bit caring, cohesive or (dare I say it) Christian. See you in HELL George W Bush, and your Bitch Mother, too! I kinda liked their snarky little dog, Barney so no Toto reference.
OF NOTE: Pastor Warren will be handing out the wafers of bread in Hades when you get there!
JH
You need to get your stats accurate on Africa. My doc in London is an AIDs specialist from Zimbabwe. NONE of the money or drugs pouring into Africa for AIDs makes any difference because there is no health care. People do not know how to take drugs, have no regular doctors or doctor visits. It is incorrect to write millions of lives were saved by Bush. Maybe millions of dollars were spent…but no millions of lives were saved. the problems in Africa will not be solved by throwing money, something Bush did a lot of.
Assuredly, Bush is a piece of shit
JH
what’s more – you are playing into the AIDS= gays myth. AIDS in Africa is primarily a heterosexual problem. They murder most of the known gays….
Dickie
I’m not sure looking at specific legislation can really tell the whole story. This asministration has decapitated the gays and placed them on a pike in front of their castle as a rallying cry, and it’s mostly been doen by influencing opinions more-so than enacting legislation.
There is very little I can say about Bush that is positive. Given the perspective of time, I’m still not sure I will be able to say something positive about the man and the loons that followed him in 20 years.
paulied
You guys missed a huge one. Joining such enlightened regimes as China, Russia, the Arab League, and the fucking Vatican, the U.S. under Bush’s tenure refuses to sign the U.N. statement to decriminalize homosexuality. Real nice!
John from England(used to be just John but there are other John's)
@ggreen:
“Bush’s AIDS relief program was nothing more than paying for Christian groups to go to Africa and convert people by denying them AIDS drugs if they didn’t convert and promise to use abstinence as the primary means of preventing HIV transmission. It has been a disaster for everyone but the corrupt African governments and people like Rick Warren they always get paid.”
Beautifully said. Exactly.
rick
Is it me or do we seem to do alot better with Dem’s fighting against a rep president,otherwise they are just asleep at the wheel with nothing to prove. I think a good strategy is to exploit this and use them as we have been used.
John from England(used to be just John but there are other John's)
@JH:
NO ONE has their stats accurate about Africa because it’s called lazy journalism. Even those who DO specialise, paint this weird tinted view that’s NOT real.
So much of the Aids medicine isn’t great, it’s cheap and NOT that effective.
All Aid money is actually spent in the country that gave it as the agencies they use etc all tend to be American or British.
And then their is that little thing called corruption between the African leader and the Western leader.
It’s harder for you guys in the US to understand but Europe has a closer relationship with Africa. By that I just don’t mean Aid that the Scandanavians have been giving for years and years but also arms, diamonds, etc.
They went to Africa with the bible and some guns in the 17th century and they go back to Africa with the bible with Aids medicines…
🙁
BombasticMo
You really can’t lump this one into our column at all. AIDS is no longer a gay disease, and Bush was far from caring about anything gay by providing care to anyone in Africa.
In addition, beyond all the money that went to Africa, Bush knee-capped any true prevention programs by force-feeding abstinence only education to a population that finds this completely culturally irrelevant (as if it was relevant anywhere).
We were making prevention inroads by teaching safe sex, consistent condom use, and a model of monogamy whenever possible. Infection rates were dropping, and things were almost optimistic (yet still far from it).
All of the money Bush gave was contingent on the teaching of Abstinence only. He fucked them as much as he fucked us.
So glad he’s almost gone.
Santiago
While support for those infected with HIV abroad sounds like progressive action, I agree that the aforementioned efforts have effectively failed to make a difference.
More importantly, shockingly little has been done to stem the tide at home. This is especially true in urban communities with teenage and young adult, Black and Latino gays, who are being infected at disturbingly younger ages and in increasingly higher rates…
Bruno
@The Gay Numbers:
“The ultimate irony is that, just like with race before it as a part of the Southern Strategy, Bush’s GOP to demonize us may put such light on the bigotry that we may obtain more by being in the spotlight than by not.”
Absolutely…the LGBT community has made great strides under the Bush administration, through the GOP’s constant gay-bashing. The numbers have headed in our direction since he began.
seitan-on-a-stick
I’m sick of seeing Bush…………………….for the last 8 years!
Change It Now!
Dave
Wish he wasn’t coming back to Texas – though at least he’ll be in Dallas not in the hill country.
Jason
I cant believe you would even question if Bush was bad for us gays !!!
Dave
From within the community we can see that but I’ve certainly encountered a few individuals, outside the community, who don’t quite get it – which is rather depressing but no less true for all of that.
ScottsEver29
Bush’s foul odor of rule and trail of major screw-ups one after another will take many years to correct…IF that can ever truly be done. There is no question he was bad for gays…he was the ultimate bastard, nasty, bully we all despised and never will forget!!!
Forrest
Oh don’t forget Mary Cheney along with Bush. She was such a great role model and took such courageous stands for us. What a waste of space she is. Someone needs to ship her the Roy Cohn Award ASAP.
bobeaux
bush was easier to understand when he was doing cocaine while workihg for Alaska Industrial Air with the assistance of Alex Miller back in the 70s, that stint kept him out of any serious service (the kind where they shoot back at you.)AIA treated him and his habit carefully so as not to cause a fuss. But then the little junky got born again , and started out with an entirely clean slate (thank you daddy & mommy) so no longer a junky. Just a dummer with very wealthy, connected parents…. life was sweet.
Charles J. Mueller
@bobeaux:
Which just goes to prove that anyone can become President in America.
Look at the proof?
karla
Stating that the participation of Rick Warren in the inauguration somehow is a prelude to more suppression of gays is ridiculous. Longing for G.W’s return? Get real.
Obama would have to stay up late and study hard to do any more damage to any group in the this country than G.W. has. He is an arrogant, stupid, trust fund baby who should be in prison (don’t count on that–mommy and daddy are too rich).
seitan-on-a-stick
Yeah, W stands for the Worst! Wait until the Bush administration hands Obama the Israel War up his ASS on inauguration day!
Karla, Obama will not have Bush tried for War Crimes now that he is in the Ivy League Presidential Club!
Too bad we are only Gay second-class Citizens with no voice in the White House (No Gay Cabinet posts!) which does not count closeted lesbian Janet Napolitano, incoming Homeland Security Secretary.
Oh, how far we’ve come……or NOT!
Dave
“Worst. President. Ever”?
Are you kidding?
Bush was worse than Bill Clinton, who watched Al Qaeda grow in strength but did nothing? Who had a tawdry affair with an intern, and then perjured himself to deny a woman a fair hearing of a case against him under a law he himself signed? Who twice vetoed bans against mostly delivering a baby and then vacuuming out his brain?
Please. Do you lefties ever seriously critique you own guys, or do only Republicans earn that honor?
Bruno
@Dave:
Oh, you were making that claim seriously? Sorry…didn’t notice at first.
GJR
Bush’s view of AIDS is like Warren’s, help people in Africa provided they embrace all of our views and we never ever let anybody have condoms. We’ll just help people when they get AIDS after being denied the proper information and tools (like condoms) to prevent the aids in the first place, because only abstinence counts.
As to helping, you know, actual gay people in America who suffer from AIDS? Not so much. Slate has a whole article on how Bush let thousands of gay men in Texas die when he was governor, because it was a “gay men’s” disease…
Michael J
I agree with and won’t repeat all the good comments made above about how horrible Bush, Rove and his party have been for gay people. It’s hard to take the question initally posed seriously.
But even if Bush were to have done something good for gay people, he should never be forgiven for all the lives lost a result of his lies made to the country and world in his willful pursuit of a war that has made the world far less safe for America and everyone else.
Bill Perdue
Yes he was at least as bad as Clinton, who was a disaster. Watch and see. Obama is a Clinton clone.
Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
Speaking of George W. Bush:
George W. Bush committed hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism (indicated in my blog).
George W. Bush did in fact commit innumerable hate crimes.
And I do solemnly swear by Almighty God that George W. Bush committed other hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism which I am not at liberty to mention.
Many people know what Bush did.
And many people will know what Bush did—even to the end of the world.
Bush was absolute evil.
Bush is now like a fugitive from justice.
Bush is a psychological prisoner.
Bush has a lot to worry about.
Bush can technically be prosecuted for hate crimes at any time.
In any case, Bush will go down in history in infamy.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
“GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY” BLOG OF ANDREW YU-JEN WANG
______________________
I am not sure where I had read it before, but anyway, it is a linguistically excellent statement, and it goes kind of like this: “If only it were possible to ban invention that bottled up memory so it never got stale and faded.” Oh wait—off the top of my head—I think the quotation came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.