Our long national nightmare is over

In the waning days of George W. Bush's tenure in the White House the president and his surrogates have been working to frame his legacy positively in the media, talking up his funding for combating AIDS in Africa and his handling of the war on terror. While it's doubtful that the American public in general will fall for Bush's revisionism -- he's leaving with the lowest approval ratings of any president in history, after all -- for LGBT people any positive spin on the Bush years rings even more hollow. Over the past eight years Bush has shown a cynical willingness to use the public's anti-gay sentiment to further his own political ambitions. He got a couple things right -- making a few openly gay appointments to his administration and signing a bill to allow people to pass on their pensions to same-sex partners -- but the bad has far outweighed the good. To ensure that Bush's legacy on LGBT rights remains spin-proof, here's a rundown of his administration's work over the last eight years.

The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA): Bush never managed to get his congressional allies to pass the FMA, which would have written a ban on same-sex marriage into the Constitution, and it is unclear how invested he was in its passage. But what is undeniable is that Bush was more than willing to use the FMA, and more broadly the issue of same-sex marriage, to inflame anti-gay sentiment for his own political gain. In February 2004, just in time for election season, Bush held a rare press conference to endorse the FMA and warn that same-sex marriage would "[weaken] the good influence of society." The FMA became a regular feature of Bush's campaign stump speech, and the Republican National Committee sent out mailers to voters in West Virginia and Arkansas warning that liberals would legalize same-sex marriage and ban the Bible. State marriage amendments appeared on the ballots in 11 states, including the decisive swing state of Ohio, drawing conservative voters to the polls. The initial spin after Bush's Election Day victory was that so-called "values voters" had delivered Bush the election.
Bush's passion for the FMA seemed to fade as the 2004 election was winding down. In October, the president went bizarrely off-message from the GOP platform and came out in support of the right of states to pass civil unions. In early January he told the Washington Post that he would not expend political capital to pass the FMA, explaining, "The point is, is that senators have made it clear that so long as DOMA [the Defense of Marriage Act] is deemed constitutional, nothing will happen [in the Senate]. I'd take their admonition seriously."

Yet come June 2006, with mid-term elections on the horizon, Bush rediscovered his enthusiasm for the FMA, giving a speech urging Congress to pass the amendment. Whether or not Bush was serious about supporting the FMA, clearly he was more than willing to use LGBT people as a wedge issue to win elections.

Injustices at DOJ: Last July a Justice Department investigation found that former Justice Department aide Monica Goodling illegally screened applicants for non-political career positions by asking them their views on issues like same-sex marriage. Goodling also weeded out candidates by plugging their names into a large Lexis Nexis search string that included the terms "gay" and "homosexual." Goodling reportedly kept up her anti-gay screening policies for about two years.

For those LGBT people who actually managed to find work at the Justice Department the Bush years were far from pleasant. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft banned the agency's LGBT employee group, DOJ Pride, from using agency e-mails, bulletin boards or function rooms. The blacklist continued under Ashcroft's successor (and Goodling's boss) Alberto Gonzales, and it was finally reversed in 2008 by Bush's third attorney general, Michael Mukasey.

Openly gay appointees: Even as the Justice Department was weeding out LGBT candidates for jobs, Bush actually appointed a couple openly gay people to administration posts. In 2001 he appointed Scott Evertz to head the Office of National AIDS Policy. Then in 2006 Bush named Mark Dybul as the new coordinator for the U.S. Global AIDS Office. Dybul's swearing-in ceremony set off a minor firestorm among the religious right. During the ceremony Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Dybul's family, including his partner, Jason Claire, and Claire's mother, who Rice referred to as Dybul's "mother-in-law." The religious conservatives who had been pressuring Bush to pass the FMA were not amused.

U.S. declines to sign gay rights declaration: Last month the United States refused to sign onto a non-binding United Nations declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality; the U.S. was the only major Western nation to withhold its support. Among those who signed the resolution were all 27 European Union members, Japan, Mexico, Australia, and several others. The Bush administration, meanwhile, preferred that the U.S. keep company with nations that punish LGBT people with imprisonment or death.

Buster-gate: Given the genuinely serious issues facing the country's education system, it was telling that when Margaret Spellings assumed the post of Secretary of Education in January 2005 one of her first items of business was to attack LGBT families. Spellings penned an angry letter that month to PBS about an episode of its popular TV show

Postcards from Buster, in which an animated rabbit visits kids in different parts of the country. The "Sugartime" episode saw Buster visiting children in Vermont to learn about maple sugar production. The children had lesbian mothers, who were featured in the episode, although there was no overt discussion of homosexuality. But in her letter Spellings demanded that PBS return all federal funds used to produce the episode, writing, "Congress' and the Department's purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children." PBS decided not to distribute the episode, although individual stations chose to show it. Spellings' actions prompted Congressman Barney Frank to write her a letter telling her "how deeply I resent your profoundly degrading comments about me and millions of other Americans."

Pension protection: One uncharacteristically pro-LGBT piece of legislation that Bush signed into law was last month's Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008. The law allows a non-spouse inheriting someone's pension to roll that pension over into an individual retirement account (IRA) without immediate taxation, and it would apply to same-sex couples. Bush signed an earlier version of the bill in 2006, but the 2008 version made it mandatory for employers to allow their employees to pass on their pension benefits to non-spouses.

Stacking the Supremes: One piece of the Bush legacy that will live on long after his presidency is his appointment of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. It remains to be seen how they will rule on LGBT-related legal matters, but they both have deeply conservative reputations, and they both were championed by the religious right.

The Cheneys: For better or worse Bush introduced the country to the strange family psychodrama of the Cheney clan. During the 2000 campaign Dick and Lynne's lesbian daughter, Mary, was kept under wraps, and Lynne snapped at Cokie Roberts after the veteran journalist referenced Mary's sexual orientation. Yet the Cheneys also broke with Bush in their opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment. Mary's sexuality produced some odd tensions. During the 2004 campaign the Cheneys accused John Kerry and John Edwards of exploiting Mary by referring to her sexual orientation during the debates; meanwhile the Bush campaign was using same-sex marriage as a wedge issue. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Vice President Cheney's position on LGBT rights is how little he was willing to do to advance them. Cheney made no effort to push the Bush administration to back off in its support of the FMA, despite his own personal stance. Given how willing Cheney was to use his authority to influence administration policy on the war on terror, it speaks volumes that he was not willing to go to the mat for his daughter and other LGBT people.