Barack Obama, Laura Bush, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney Appear In Same-Sex Marriage Advocacy Campaign

The Respect for Marriage Coalition, co-chaired by the Human Rights Campaign, is slated to have ads featured in a number of well-known newspapers, and will also run a television advertisement featuring President Barack Obama, former first lady Laura Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Politico reports.

Officials for the organization say that print ads will appear in such publications as Politico, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, while broadcast ads will soon appear on national cable and the Sunday-morning talk shows.

(The video advertisement can currently be viewed online.)

According to Politico, the campaign aims to show support for same-sex marriage on both sides of the political spectrum, using not current interviews, but rather prior excerpts of Bush, Obama, Cheney and Powell discussing their views on gay marriage.

In the video ad, former first lady Laura Bush is pictured during a CNN interview 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.”

President Obama also notably discussed the need for progress in gay rights during his inaugural address in January.

“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law,” he said.

Currently, there are two major cases pertaining to gay marriage under consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court; one considering the California gay marriage ban, and the other about the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Politico notes.

The campaign aims to encourage progress in these cases, following the victories for gay-marriage seen in states as Washington, Maryland, Maine and Minnesota on Election Day last November.