Bringing up Cheney's daughter's sexuality- Page 5

[ckeaton]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 1:39pm

Can you believe that in 2004, this is a subversive idea???

(I realize that I asked the initial question... mainly to spark constructive dialogue...BUT)

I think that the fact that this is even an issue in a "modern" society is quite indicitive of where we are in history. There will be a time in the future, soon I imagine, where our children look back on this period much akin to the way we now look back at racial segregation of the 50s and 60s. A sort of "head shaking sorrow", that our predecessors couldn't see the light of equality. We've discussed it before, but I can feel that evolution happening right beneath us, through us... in fact.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 1:44pm

And Bush/Cheney will do everything they can to hold that evolution back. Only voting for Kerry/Edwards will allow gays and lesbians to achieve equal protection under the law.

[ckeaton]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 1:45pm

PJ, rest well knowing that as a resident of New York, my vote barely counts.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 2:13pm

Yes but think how much it would mean to your gay and lesbian friends, if you switched from Bush to Kerry, is support of our struggle for equal rights.

Not to mention all the other reasons to vote for Kerry over Bush...

[rlbgbc]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 3:51pm

*copied from another board, but sums this controversy all up*

Pat Robertson: Blames Mary Cheney, by extension, of responsibility for 9/11 terrorist attacks. "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America--I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen."(September 2001)
Lynn and Dick Cheney's response: Silence

Rick Santorum: Accuses Mary Cheney, by definition, of immorality comparable to polygamy, adultery and incest. "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." (April 2003)

Lynn and Dick Cheney's response: Silence

Alan Keyes: Specifically accuses Mary Cheney, by name, of being a "selfish hedonist." (August 2004)

Lynn and Dick Cheney's response: Silence

John Kerry: Sympathetically and eloquently explains that the Cheney's gay daughter is "she's being who she was. She's being who she was born as."

Lynn and Dick Cheney's response: THIS IS NOT A GOOD MAN!!!! WHAT A CHEAP AND TAWDRY POLITICAL TRICK!!! YOU SAW A MAN WHO WILL DO AND SAY ANYTHING TO GET ELECTED!!!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 4:03pm

Which is weird given Lynn's penchant for writing lesbian erotica.

I am not making that up, you know.

[mominator]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 4:17pm

The mere fact that Mary Cheney was not on stage with her father at the RNC speaks for itself. Actually it says "Yes dear we love you, but don't go up on stage and wave with us!"

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 4:26pm

From an article in Salon.com:

First, let's dispense with the comic aspects of the parental indignation:


Mary Cheney has been happily out of the closet for at least a decade, so John Kerry was hardly dragging her out against her will.
She spent the late '90s working as a veritable professional lesbian, as gay and lesbian corporate relations manager for Coors Brewing Co.
Dick Cheney himself has been using her sexuality on the campaign trail. Click here to watch a Human Rights Campaign ad with him on the stump on Aug. 24, 2004: "Lynne and I have a gay daughter ... "
The Bush-Cheney administration has shamelessly used homosexuality as a wedge issue, never hesitating to play the sodomite card when it serves their political ends.
John Edwards brought up Mary Cheney in response to a similar gay-rights question just eight days earlier in the veep debate. Dick Cheney responded by thanking him for his kind remarks.

Maybe Dick's indignation began later that night watching "The Daily Show." Jon Stewart poked fun at Edwards for opportunistically screaming GAY DAUGHTER! GAY DAUGHTER! to any homophobe out there who still hadn't heard about it.

It didn't go much further, but twice in one week was apparently too much -- for the Cheneys and for the media. The conservative cable clones began piling on. Even some liberals have been squeamish about the Democrats invoking Mary's lesbianism so shamelessly.

But they just don't get it. Much of the gay population is incensed. At the media.

Let's get one thing straight. It is not an insult to call a proudly public lesbian a lesbian. It's an insult to gasp when someone calls her a lesbian. That's how all the gays I have spoken to the past 24 hours perceived the press response. You're embarrassed for us. And it's infuriating.

Consider the way a paraplegic or a blind person feels when you act just a little too sympathetic about their "plight." We don't want your pity! Can you see how insulting it is?

The only thing offensive about Kerry's statement to us gay people was that he had to pause mid-sentence and gulp and sputter the terrifying word out: "Dick Cheney's daughter, who is ... a lesbian ..."

It's not a dirty word, John. And why is the press reacting like he exposed a breast?

The most outlandish exchange I've seen came in a scholarly Fox News debate Thursday -- seriously, it happens -- over the candidates' linguistic styles, of all things. The conservative guy, Eric Dezenhall, charged that "the invocation of Vice President Cheney's daughter's lesbianism was sort of a radioactive concept. The words lesbian in a presidential debate -- even if you don't mean it to be mean -- came across as off the grid, and very, very shrill."

Is he serious? If it's innocent little gay people you think you're protecting here, listen up! Gay people do not consider the invocation of our existence radioactive. It's the comparisons to plutonium that drive us nuts. We are not toxic.

A gay reader e-mailed to lament that, "I've heard my own mom say that she wished there was a 'nicer' word" than "lesbian."

At least he didn't have Lynne Cheney for a mom.

Her response was truly deplorable. If Mary Cheney is distraught this morning, it's likely her mother is the cause. And it's perplexing to millions of gay Americans today why the press has not grasped how horrible she acted toward Mary Wednesday night.

Maybe it's understandable. Most of you out there have never been a homo. Let me share a personal story to illustrate how this works for a gay person. I came out to my parents when I was in my 30s -- they were shocked, then understanding, but also a little queasy about it. The queasiness was much less about them accepting me as it was their friends accepting them.

That's the part that stings. No matter how old you get.

Once you're happily out of the closet a few years, you don't bat an eye at someone hearing you're gay. Even on national television. Even if your father's the vice president. (Especially if your father's the vice president -- don't you think she's used to it by now?)

What rips your heart out is when someone close to you denies your sexuality in public. Or shudders at the mention of it, so you can see how desperately they want to.

It may sound like a subtle implication to a straight person -- clearly it does; even the most liberal straight pundits appear oblivious to it -- but a gay person hears it scream out loud and clear. You people still feel there's something to be ashamed of here.

One of the happiest days of my life came when one of the old ladies at my mom's Catholic bridge club mentioned what a nice young husband I'd make. My mother, in her 60s by then, laughed it off. "I don't think that's going to happen," she said. "He's gay."

I was stunned when I heard the story. It had taken her years to get to that point. And it meant everything to me. She didn't care what the bridge ladies thought. She cared more about me.

I doubt very much that Mary Cheney gives a rat's ass if some church lady in Idaho knows she's gay. But her mother cringing at the church lady knowing -- that's gotta hurt like hell.

[mominator]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 4:41pm

I would Beav but she is working for his campaign

[shesings]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 4:48pm

You nailed it Borstalboy. I don' tknow if Kerry needed to bring it up, but its not like he revealed any confidential info to us. Fact is Cheney has been using it, he just doesn't want anyone else to.

[mominator]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 4:49pm

Borstboy, people have asked me how I would feel if one of my children came to me and sid "I"m Gay" how would I feel. I told them this is my child and I love them for who they are. I would have no problem letting my family and friends know. If they have a problem that is THEIR problem.

[mominator]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 4:54pm

Sadly I missed it. But that was a great one. I so can't wait for next Wednesday!

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 4:59pm

I should credit the writer of the above: David Cullen.

[SamIAm]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 5:07pm

Just my two cents. I don't think Kerry was trying to pull a political move here. Cheney's daughter has been out and vocal for some time and the family itself has talked about her life. It wasn't as if he outed her and it wasn't as if he was saying anything negative. He was talking about families and people accepting what and who they are and what and who their children are.

He used a public name and I can see where it would come to mind, given the question he was asked by the moderator 'do you think homosexuality is a choice'. He could have used any number of well known names of gay people but this was a political debate and she has a political affiliation. Also, her name had come up in the VP debate and no one seemed to feel that was inappropriate.

If he had said something horrible about her I could understand it, but if you look at the national poll taken on this flap you'll see that over 60% of the people polled thought there was nothing wrong with what he said. I think Cheney overreacted. That's my opinion. And if he and his wife felt so violated about it...have we heard a word from the woman whose name Kerry mentioned? Cheney's daughter? She hasn't made a public statement decrying his use of her name, has she?

[SamIAm]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 5:10pm

and while we are on the subject of accepting Cheney's daughter for who she is...where the heck was she on the grand stand the night of the RNC? Everyone in his family was there EXCEPT her.

For a family that 'celebrates' their daughter...it certainly seems that she had a place with her family on such a celebratory night.

Hmmm.

[SamIAm]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 5:15pm

PalJoey: You make valid points about rights and the day to day impact they have on your life. Being able to make a life or death decision for your partner if necessary instead of letting the family do it. Having the right to share benefits, children, property, etc and not have someone try to take them away from you if something happens to your partner.

The sad fact is that even if Kerry or Clinton or anyone else BELIEVED in the right for gay people to marry, they would have to soften it in order to be elected by the majority in the country. There are lot of people out there that would discount a candidate even if that candidate had the spirituality of Mother Teresa and the intelligence of Albert Einstein...JUST BECAUSE THEY WERE FOR GAY MARRIAGE. That's sad but true.

So underneath the side stepping of the state vs. federal stuff and the partnership vs marriage argument who knows whether Kerry is secretly FOR gay marriage. And if I were Cheney's daughter or anyone's child with a parent who said they loved me for who I was but didn't support my free access to the same rights everyone else has...I'd be pretty darned ticked off

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/16/04 at 12:43am

Sam--I completely agree. John Kerry and John Edwards might have religious/macho personal problems with gay marriage, but they stand up for equal rights. In 2004, with the propect of Bush replacing the Supreme Court with fascists like Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas, I'll "settle" for equal rights

And the "Johns" may not support gay marriage, but I bet Teresa and Elizabeth do!