We Desperately Need ‘All Sort Of Forms’

Jeb Bush, George W’s brother, the other son of former President George H.W. Bush, the one who was “supposed to be” president, said in a recent interview that while traditional marriage should be sanctioned by the state, America desperately needs all forms of families and parenting examples as long as they can be held up as role models. Bush also made headlines this morning, slamming the Republican Party, saying today’s GOP would not welcome his father, or Ronald Reagan.

The former Florida Governor told PBS’s Charlie Rose that “traditional marriage is what should be sanctioned,” but “not at the expense of discriminating other forms of family structure.”

The Miami Herald notes that Bush added:
“I don’t think people need to be discriminated against because they don’t share my belief on this, and if people love their children with all their heart and soul and that’s what they do and that’s how they organize their life that should be held up as examples for others to follow because we need it. We desperately need it and that can take all sorts of forms, it doesn’t have to take the one that I think should be sanctioned under the law.”

Certainly not an embrace of same-sex marriage, but not as radical or as much an assault as his brother’s failed attempt to ban same-sex marriage in the Constitution.

Buzzfeed reports on Bush’s slam of the GOP this morning:

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said today that both Ronald Reagan and his father George H. W. Bush would have had a difficult time getting nominated by today’s ultra-conservative Republican Party.

“Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad — they would have a hard time if you define the Republican party — and I don’t — as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement, doesn’t allow for finding some common ground,” Bush said, adding that he views the hyper-partisan moment as “temporary.”

“Back to my dad’s time and Ronald Reagan’s time – they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan suport [sic] ,” he said. Reagan “would be criticized for doing the things that he did.”

Bush cited, in particular, “the budget deal my dad did, with bipartisan support — at least for a while — that created the spending restraint of the ‘90s,” a reference to a move widely viewed now as a political disaster for Bush, breaking a pledge against tax increases and infuriating conservatives. It was, Bush said, “helpful in creating a climate of more sustainted economic growth.”