The question of gay adoption has been a back-burner for the Christian Right. Until now, of course. Brody has Family Research Council president Tony Perkins pillorying McCain for his campaign’s recent dialing back of his opposition to gay adoption, which he expressed in a New York Times interview last weekend.
Because it’s a tier-two issue for religious conservatives, God-o-Meter got to wunderin’: what’s W’s position? It found the answer in an AP story from March 23, 1999 about then-Gov/presidential aspirant George W. Bush.

Bush said he opposes allowing gay couples to adopt. “I believe children ought to be adopted in families with a woman and a man who are married,” he said Monday.
The governor also declined to take a position on whether children already adopted by gays or lesbians should be removed from those homes. “I have no idea whether the children ought to be removed or not removed,” he said. “The question is whether I’m for gay adoption. And the answer is, I’m not.”

GOM checked in with the Human Rights Campaign to see if Bush had since moderated his postion, and the group said he hadn’t (though it relied only on the Times interview with McCain, in which the gay adoption question was put thusly: President Bush believes that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt children. Do you agree with that?
What is striking to GOM in juxtaposing the response from McCain with that from Bush is that Bush comes across as super decisive–“The question is whether I’m for gay adoption. And the answer is, I’m not”–while McCain comes across as wishy-washy, saying “I don’t believe in gay adoption” but having his campaign issue a statement softening that stance soon afterward.
A good example of why the Christian Right had such faith in Bush. And so little in McCain.

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