Prominent GOP’r in Favor of Gay Marriage Vote

By Kevin Liptak CNN  

Prominent Republicans who support marriage rights for same-sex couples are the focus of a new million-dollar ad campaign that's set to roll out Wednesday.

The spot, from the Respect for Marriage Coalition, features clips of former Vice President Dick Cheney, former first lady Laura Bush, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell all voicing their support for same-sex marriage rights. The ads also use a clip from President Barack Obama's second inaugural address in January.

The group said they would spend $1 million to air the ad, as well as run print ads in major newspapers utilizing the same quotes from the Republicans who back equal marriage rights.

"None of us would want to be told we can't marry the person we love," a narrator says introducing the clips. "That's why a growing majority of Americans believe it's time to allow marriage for gay and lesbian couples."

Bush is shown in a 2010 CNN interview with Larry King saying, "When couples are committed to each other and love each other then they ought to have the same sort of rights that everyone has."

Those remarks came as a surprise at the time, since she appeared to be breaking ranks on the issue with her husband, former President George W. Bush. In 2011, her daughter Barbara appeared in a television spot for another pro-gay marriage group, the Human Rights Campaign.

Wednesday's ad from the Respect for Marriage Coalition also shows Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State under George W. Bush, supporting same-sex marriage in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer from May.

"Allowing them to live together with the protection of law, it seems to me is the way we should be moving in this country," Powell said on CNN's "The Situation Room."

That interview reflected a shift for Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy was implemented.

A third Republican, former Vice President Dick Cheney, is shown in the spot saying "Freedom means freedom for everyone." Cheney's younger daughter Mary wed her longtime partner Heather Poe in June. They were married in Washington, D.C., which legalized same-sex marriage in 2009

And a Democrat, President Barack Obama, is shown during his January inauguration address declaring "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law.”

The new ad campaign comes as the Supreme Court prepares to tackle the issue of same-sex marriage this spring. Last year the high court agreed to hear two constitutional challenges to state and federal laws dealing with the recognition of gay and lesbian couples to legally wed.

Oral arguments will be held on March 26 and 27, with a ruling by late June.