Mrs. Bush welcomes gay-issues debate

BURBANK, Calif. -- Laura Bush yesterday called gay marriage "an issue that a lot of people have a lot of trouble with," but she stopped short of endorsing a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex unions.

In an interview aboard an Air Force plane that carried her on a two-day, four-city campaign swing, the president's wife said she would welcome a national debate on the issue of gay marriage following the weddings that began Monday in Massachusetts. She said she agreed with the president that the American people, not a few judges, should have a voice in setting the important social policy.

"It's something people should talk about and debate," Mrs. Bush said. She said Congress could be an appropriate place for that debate to begin, but she refused to say that she supported passage of the proposed constitutional amendment that her husband endorsed earlier this year.

"I'm in favor of the debate," she said.

Asked whether she would invite a married, gay couple to a state dinner at the White House, she said, "Sure, of course."

Gordon Johndroe, her press secretary, said he could not imagine such a situation arising. He said the question was "trivializing an issue that people are seriously trying to debate in this country."

In a wide-ranging interview about her role in the reelection campaign and its issues, Mrs. Bush said that she had never met Senator John F. Kerry, but that she found it difficult to hear any opponent make political attacks against her husband. "It's a fact of life" in politics, Mrs. Bush said, but hurtful when attacks are against "someone you love."

Mrs. Bush said she planned to take an active and constructive role in her husband's campaign, and for the first time in their lives, have her 22-year-old twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, "involved in some way" in the reelection effort.

The Bush daughters, whose privacy has been closely guarded, both graduate from college this week. Mrs. Bush said she was sad that she and the president would not attend the ceremonies, a decision made because the White House feared their presence could disrupt the graduations at the University of Texas [Jenna's] and Yale [Barbara's].

Last night, Laura Bush took the reelection campaign to the "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." She acknowledged she was nervous about the late-afternoon taping at NBC-TV's studios in Burbank. "I feel this pressure to be funny," she said in the interview.

Leno gave her plenty of opportunities, quizzing her about her husband, her mother-in-law, her daughters, and her activities the night before in Las Vegas.

"What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," Mrs. Bush said, adding that she had never put a quarter in a slot machine. Later, she added, "And what happens in the White House stays in the White House."

Leno asked whether she exercised. She replied that she has a personal trainer, works out two or three times a week, and lifts weights.

"In a fight you could take on Teresa Heinz [Kerry]?" Leno asked. "Very funny," Mrs. Bush said.

She appeared on on Leno's show, which attracts about 6 million viewers nightly, as she was notching up her role and visibility in her husband's reelection campaign and as polls have shown Bush's approval ratings lower than at any time in his presidency.

The only other time Mrs. Bush appeared on "The Tonight Show" was in February 2002. Joking about how her husband had choked on a pretzel while watching television, Mrs. Bush presented Leno with a fist-sized pretzel and said the president in the future would practice "safe snacks."

She also spoke during that appearance about her husband's resolve after Sept. 11, 2001. She disclosed that the Bushes had been awakened the next night by security agents and hurried to the bunker below the White House, because of fears of a terrorist attack on the White House.

Earlier yesterday, Mrs.Bush, a former librarian, visited William Walker Elementary School in Beaverton, Ore., which has improved the achievement of its students by instituting a reading program that Mrs. Bush has championed.

While a dozen cameras recorded the event, Mrs. Bush sat in a classroom and read with second-graders. She later held a discussion with teachers and administrators, who praised the Reading First program and the $11 million in federal funding Oregon has received under the No Child Left Behind Act, one of President Bush's signature domestic initiatives.