Editor’s note: Each week, WorldNetDaily White House correspondent Les Kinsolving asks the tough questions no one else will ask. And each week, WorldNetDaily brings you the transcripts of those dialogues with the president and his spokesman. If you’d like to suggest a question for the White House, submit it to WorldNetDaily’s exclusive interactive forum MR. PRESIDENT!
At today’s White House news briefing, WND asked presidential press secretary Scott McClellan about a statement President Bush made this week regarding civil-union laws passed by states and about his comments on freedom for Taiwan.
The discussion began with a tongue-in-cheek interchange about the number of questions reporters present in White House briefings.
WND: Scott, I have a two-part. In his interview with ABC –
McCLELLAN: Do you ever have a one-part?
WND: I don’t get six parts like lots of people in the front row.
McCLELLAN: But Jim was being very nice. He had a smile on his face today.
WND: I’ll smile, too.
McCLELLAN: This administration doesn’t believe in pointing fingers, Les. Let’s try to raise the tone in here, too.
WND: In his interview with ABC, the president said regarding homosexual unions: “Whatever legal arrangements people want to make, so long as its embraced by the state or at state level.” And my question, does this mean that the president sees no problem with any state passing civil unions or homosexual marriage laws that give them the same legal status as marriages between one man and one woman?
McCLELLAN: Thank you for that question, Les. I would point out that the president reiterated what he has previously said. The president has always been strongly supportive of the principle that marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman, and that he will do what it takes to protect and defend the sanctity of marriage. He made that very clear in the interview the other night. He strongly supports the Defense of Marriage Act, which says that for federal law purposes, marriage is between a man and a woman. And it says that states don’t have to recognize other states’ laws on the matter. So we strongly support that.
He has also made it very clear, in light of the recent Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling, that he will do what is legally necessary to protect the sanctity of marriage. And that’s what he’s committed to doing. We said, going back to the campaign, that states have the right to decide legal arrangements that they so choose. Certainly the president’s views during the campaign, we said that he would not have supported that for the state of Texas, and he was governor at the time.
WND: In the president’s proclamation of human rights day, bill of rights day and human rights week, he declared, “Freedom is the right of mankind and the future of every nation.” But the New Hampshire Union-Leader said President Bush, who not so long ago was speaking eloquent phrases about the U.S. commitment to democracy all over the globe, apparently thinks it is a bad idea for the people of Taiwan to so much as vote on whether they prefer that Chinese missiles not point in their direction. My question, could you help us, Scott, in this Bush contradiction?
McCLELLAN: Well, I don’t agree with the premise of the question there. The president’s priority is to preserve peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, in order to safeguard Taiwan’s democracy, to promote the spread of personal freedoms in China and spare the region the scourge of war. That’s the president’s priority. We support Taiwan’s democracy, as we do others around the world. The president’s uncompromising position on Taiwan security is the clearest proof of his administration’s commitment on that. And the president made it clear to Premier Wen that the United States would fulfill its obligations to help Taiwan defend itself, as called for under the Taiwan Relations Act.
But as the president said during those meetings we oppose any unilateral decision by either China or Taiwan to change the status quo, for the reasons I stated at the beginning of my comments on this very issue. And that’s the president’s view. That’s been his position.
WND: Those are two good answers. (Laughter.)
McCLELLAN: Well, they were two good questions, Les.
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WND Staff