2003
Bush calls for marriage to be codified as one man, one woman
At a Rose Garden press conference on July 30, 2003, George W. Bush said he believed “marriage is between a man and a woman,” that “we ought to codify that one way or the other,” and that he had lawyers looking at the best way to do it.
The timing was not accidental. Five weeks earlier the Supreme Court had struck down the last sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas, making gay sex legal in every state for the first time. The answer came quickly. Bush endorsed a constitutional amendment the following February. That November, voters in eleven states wrote bans into their own constitutions.
The federal amendment never passed.
He got his codification in the end, just not the way he was hoping for. On December 13, 2022 Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act, protecting same-sex marriage in federal law.
CNN, July 30, 2003: “Bush wants marriage reserved for heterosexuals”