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Bush White House had 70 Gay Staffers

It wasn't entirely welcoming.

The gays and lesbians of George W. Bush's administration are coming out of the closet. Facing discrimination from colleagues and the president's own stance on same-sex marriage, they're now speaking out on the difficult environment they faced within the Republican White House. “People would come to my office, and they’d make appointments. And their sole purpose was to pray for me in my office,” remembers Scott Evertz, the openly gay AIDS adviser. One advance aide says he counted at least 70 gay staffers, with many more unknown. “Did we have a lot of people in the closet in the administration?” says one former senior official. “I used to say we had an entire warehouse.”