Jeb Bush wants you to think that he’d make a good republican ally for the LGBT community, but a recent addition to his would-be Presidential campaign suggests that the youngest Bush brother isn’t as moderate as he purports to be. In a statement given to the Christian Broadcast Network, Jordan Sekulow announced that he had been brought on to act as a senior advisor for Bush’s political action committee.
“Governor Bush knows how to take bold conservative ideas and put them into action,” said Sekulow. “I am excited to begin a conversation with conservatives about Governor Bush’s pro-life, pro-family, tax-cutting record in Florida and the ideas we need to put into action to give every American a chance to rise up.”
Sekulow’s addition to Bush’s team marks a sharp shift in the former governor’s messaging that up until now had been marked by constant dithering.
Over the past few months Jeb Bush has been carefully recrafting his public image in a likely bid for the GOP’s nomination. Rather than coast on his family name, the younger of the Bush brothers has made an effort to differentiate himself from his brother and father through a series of calculated messages about just who Jeb Bush is.
In a botched attempt to make himself out to be the transparent “tech” Bush, Bush’s office published thousands of constituent e-mail correspondences. That identity was further damaged when it came to light that the Bush team had failed to secure a rather obvious domain they should have bought ages ago in preparation for his Presidential campaign.
To his credit, Bush also made a concerted effort to remain somewhat neutral (though still mostly negative) about marriage equality, prompting many to wonder what his politics regarding LGBT issues might actually be. Sekulow, unlike his new boss, leaves little to the imagination in terms of his thoughts on LGBT people and other progressive issues.
As The Daily Beast points out, Sekulow and his father have been active participants in the American Center for Law & Justice’s grassroots efforts to support homophobic legislation abroad in Zimbabwe, where homosexually is currently illegal. Similarly Sekulow has met with Russian politicians doing much of the same type of anti-LGBT lobbying on behalf of the American right.
