First of all, I want to do something that is certainly not typical for me. I want to congratulate Mary Cheney, her partner Heather Poe, and Lynne and Dick Cheney, on the wonderful news that they are expecting a new child to be brought into this world. I also want to add my sympathies that there are some intolerant jerks that are already here in this world to treat them like this:
No Republican in Washington is more beloved by social conservatives than Vice President Dick Cheney, who with his wife, Lynne, has backed and breathed every issue dear to them for six tumultuous years.
News that Cheney’s lesbian daughter, Mary, is pregnant has therefore touched a nerve, as advocates for conservative values struggle to reconcile their loyalty to the Cheneys with their visceral opposition to same-sex relationships — and particularly to raising a child without a father.
“Not only is she doing a disservice to her child, she’s voiding all the effort her father put into the Bush administration,” said Janice Shaw Crouse, senior fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute, the think tank of Concerned Women for America. Asked why the administration downplayed the news, she added, “This is Cheney’s daughter; anything they say will make the situation worse.”
I expect that the politicization of what should be a purely joyful moment for the Cheneys, is dulling their excitement. It would be nice if anything could void ‘all the effort [Dick Cheney has] put into the Bush administration’. Alas, the birth of a child is not going to accomplish that feat.
I am not going to add to their family’s difficulties by piling on. We all know that Dick Cheney has been indifferent to similar feelings in countless other families. Maybe he will learn something valuable from this. But even if he doesn’t, it shouldn’t be a political issue. Dick Cheney is going to become a grandfather. He should enjoy the moment. He should cherish the child. And we should mind our own business.
