The president used to be much more sympathetic to queers, according to a college friend from George W. Bush's Yale days

In an op-ed piece that appeared in several publications including the LA Times, Baltimore Sun and Houston Chronicle Lanny J. Davis described a much more compassionate Bush.

...someone we all believed to be gay walked by, although the word we used in those days was "queer." Someone, I'm sorry to say, snidely used that word as he walked by.

George heard it and, most uncharacteristically, snapped: "Shut up." Then he said, in words I can remember almost verbatim: "Why don't you try walking in his shoes for a while and see how it feels before you make a comment like that?"

Davis continued his commentary wondering "why Bush chose to exploit the gay marriage issue in his campaign and speculated that it's what politics does to a person.