White House press secretary, Focus on the Family chief compare gay marriage ban to civil rights battle
Max Blumenthal
Published: Wednesday June 7, 2006
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/White_House_press_secretary_Focus_on_0607.htmlOn June 5, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow hosted right-wing evangelical radio host and author James Dobson in his office for a discussion about President George W. Bush's support for the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA), which would amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. In their conversation, broadcast on Dobson's Focus on the Family radio show to over 3000 stations worldwide, both Dobson and Snow compared the MPA to landmark legislation passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson that conferred civil rights protections upon African-Americans.
Dobson made his civil rights analogy in the context of a criticism, asking Snow why the President was not "beat
on the bully pulpit" for the MPA as aggressively as Johnson did for the civil rights bills he supported. To explain Bush's seemingly passive posture, Snow reassured Dobson that, "on issues like this, they tend to come up and come up and come up. And with civil rights laws, they came up a number of times."
Dobson and Snow's conversation followed a White House press briefing the day before in which Snow likened the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment to civil rights legislation, then stumbled when asked to define civil rights.