Former First Lady Laura Bush, in her soon-to-be-release memoir Spoken From The Heart has gone on the record to outline her counsel to her husband about the use of same-sex marriage as an election strategy in the 2004 elections:

“In 2004 the social question that animated the campaign was gay marriage. Before the election season had unfolded, I had talked to George about not making gay marriage a significant issue. We have, I reminded him, a number of close friends who are gay or whose children are gay. But at that moment I could never have imagined what path this issue would take and where it would lead.”

Read more excerpts from Spoken From The Heart at the Daily Beast.