Bush’s daughter joins wife in supporting gay marriage

George W Bush is looking increasingly isolated within his own family on the issue of gay marriage after his daughter Barbara Bush joined his wife Laura in coming out in favour of a change in the law.

Barbara, 29, the twin sister of writer and broadcaster Jenna Bush, has shied away from the spotlight in the past but that has all changed with the release of a short video for the Human Rights Campaign group in which she endorses the right of homosexuals to marry.

"I am Barbara Bush, and I am a New Yorker for marriage equality," the dark-haired beauty tells the camera, adding: "New York is about fairness and equality. And everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love."

Barbara's stance echoes that of her mother Laura, who last year told CNN: "When couples are committed to each other and love each other, they ought to have the same sort of rights that everyone has".

George W Bush has yet to comment on his daughter's participation in the gay marriage campaign which supporters hope will result in New York legalising gay marriage but, as the New York Times points out, it was while president that he sought an amendment to the constitution outlawing homosexual unions.

In 2004 Bush said: "The union of a man and a woman is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society."

The Human Rights Campaign will broadcast the video at its annual gala in New York City at the weekend, one of many clips to be shown, and campaign spokesman Brian Ellner told the NYT: "No matter what party they belong to, young Americans believe in basic fairness and equality."

Miss Bush was born in Texas but now lives in the Greenwich Village district of Manhattan, and her intervention in the issue (New York voted against a bill to permit gay marriage in 2009) hasn't come as a surprise to her close friends and former students at Yale University, where she studied in the early 2000s.

"She was loved by the gay community at Yale," C. Brian Smith told the NYT. "She had that mind-set." ·