President Bush said at a July 30 press conference that he would seek a means of codifying marriage as strictly between a man and woman.
A reporter asked Bush: "Mr. President, many of your supporters believe that homosexuality is immoral. They believe that it's been given too much acceptance in policy terms and culturally. As someone who's spoken out in strongly moral terms, what's your view on homosexuality?"
"Yes, I am mindful that we're all sinners, and I caution those who may try to take the speck out of their neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own," said Bush. "I think it's very important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts, to be a welcoming country. On the other hand, that does not mean that somebody like me needs to compromise on an issue such as marriage. And that's really where the issue is heading here in Washington, and that is the definition of marriage. I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman. And I think we ought to codify that one way or the other. And we've got lawyers looking at the best way to do that."
Meanwhile, a July 25-27 Gallup poll of 1,006 Americans showed that support for allowing homosexual couples to "legally form civil unions giving them some of the legal rights of married couples" has fallen from 49% in May to 40% now.
Gallup concluded that since the Supreme Court's June 26 decision throwing out a Texas law that banned homosexual sodomy there has been a "backlash" against the gay agenda. "[I]t could be," said the Gallup analysis, "that the intense and vocal opposition to the liberalization of gay rights that surfaced after the decision has activated what had been more dormant conservative attitudes within the American population."
Only 48% of those polled said "homosexual relations between consenting adults" should be legal. Among Republicans, only 38% said homosexual relations should be legal. Among Democrats, 51% said they should be legal. On the West Coast, 59% said homosexual relations should be legal; and on the East Coast, 53%. But in the Midwest, only 45% said homosexual relations should be legal; and in the South, only 42% said they should be legal. Only 35% of blacks said homosexual relations should be legal.
