Tue. December 29, 2009
Karl Rove, the former senior adviser to President George W. Bush, has been granted a divorce in Texas after 24 years of marriage to wife Darby.
The couple is said to have split amicably, even spending the Christmas holiday together and with their son Andrew Madison Rove, according to an insider cited by Politico.
Rove's divorce is making headlines because he has been an outspoken opponent of gay marriage. Rove is considered the architect behind using gay marriage as a wedge issue during the 2004 presidential election, which helped President Bush defeat John Kerry.
Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic writes: "To be fair, his long-running coordinated attempt to deny others the right to any civil marriage at all was only a means to an end - using fear to win elections.... Rove isn't a homophobe in private by all accounts; he just knows how to exploit the fears of those who are."
"Rove obtained his divorce under Texas' "no-fault" divorce law, one of the most permissive in the nation. That law basically allows any married couple to simply end their marriage because they feel like it," writes Salon's Glenn Greenwald. "Texas, needless to say, is one of the states which has constitutionally barred same-sex marriages."
This is Rove's second divorce. He was married to Valarie Wainright, a Houston socialite and Bush family friend, for three years.
Rove's 608-page memoir, "Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight," is due out from Simon & Schuster's Threshold Editions on March 9.
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