George W. Bush reportedly offered to officiate a gay wedding

published 25 May 2015

Deep in an article focused on Republican candidate Jeb Bush's new house in Kennebunkport, the Boston Globe reports that former President George W. Bush once offered to officiate a same-sex wedding ceremony for family friends:

Some mornings, [Jeb] Bush drops into H.B. Provisions, a cozy general store owned by Bonnie Clement and her wife, Helen Thorgalsen (George H.W. Bush made international headlines when he attended their wedding in 2013; George W. Bush offered to perform the ceremony but had a scheduling conflict). [Boston Globe]

As others have noted, this tidbit is intriguing given W's complicated history with gay marriage: In 2004, he supported a constitutional ban on gay marriage, basing his arguments in religious and legal traditions — but he also backed civil unions, which was then a controversial position in the GOP. And when Bush Sr. attended Clement and Thorgalsen's wedding, W's camp refused to comment. In recent years, however, George W. Bush has moderated his rhetoric about gay marriage, repeatedly quoting a passage from the Sermon on the Mount, which prohibits judging others.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.