President George W. Bush's press secretary Ari Fleischer refused to comment on the decision, noting only that the administration had not filed a brief in the case. As governor, Bush had opposed repeal of the Texas sodomy provision, which he called a "symbolic gesture of traditional values". After quoting Fleischer calling it "a state matter", Linda Greenhouse, writing in "The New York Times", commented: "In fact, the decision today ... took what had been a state-by-state matter and pronounced a binding national constitutional principle."