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.
So speaks the party of family values. Some babies are okay, but not this one.
Well, it could be okay if Mary went to counseling and then found a husband to help her raise the child. It’s not the child that is objected to here. Unless they have a problem with donors.
they could abort?
Here we have a problem with the ethics of total certainty or absolute truth. The proponents of black-and-white, no-grey-area ethics are simply frozen into stupidity by this:
WHIR…BING…WHIRRRR…BINNNNTGGGGG…..WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR….
KABOOOOOMMMMM
Personally, I’d assume that Cheney’s typical indifference to public opinion will extend to this issue.
I’d also assume (& hope, in this case) that this indifference is genetic.
Anyway, Crouse’s comment seems to indicate an effort to drive a perceptual wedge between the administration & Mary Cheney. That is, between a father & his daughter. The ‘family values’ veil is torn further asunder: social conservatives primarily espouse control, not family; GOP officials remain immune by virtue of their natural Alpha positioning.
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.
Amen to that.
To be fair, when pressed on the issue, the vice president declined to jump on the anti-gay bandwagon. That doesn’t excuse his general silence on the matter, or the many other egregious sins that ought to be rightly laid at his feet, but it does make the situation a bad one for the left to politicize, basic human decency aside. Let the right wing eat their own on this. We should lead by example, which in this case, would be by refraining to stick our collective noses where they don’t belong.
Interesting, that
while ‘ ..when pressed on the issue, the vice president declined to jump on the anti-gay bandwagon.’
Again: their fealty is clearly based in his authority & not dependent on his leadership re ‘family values’ — so he will prove faultless in their opinion & remain basically untouchable, while his daughter will bear the brunt of condemnation. That’s how the apparent conflict of interest will be resolved, imo.
Authority first, true family values after.
Sadly, I believe you are absolutely correct.
Sometimes the radical wingnuts seem to forget that lesbians can, in fact, have babies (they just need a little outside assistance), and what’s more, sometimes choose to do exactly that…. just as there are straight women (even straight married women) who choose NOT to have children, ever.
::head shaky:: Hard to believe this is such a big deal to some people. You’re right… other than wishing congratulations to the family, it’s no one else’s business.
Can you imagine what the reaction of the conservatives, radical right-wingers and the news media that they control would be doing regarding this if it were the daughter of a Democratic president?
If you think their reaction has been harsh so far, my guess is that that would be nothing compared to their reaction if this were done by the gay child of a Democratic president.
Newton LeRoy Gingrich would most assuredly be advising the rest of the world that this is clear evidence of the total disintigeration of the nuclear family and society as we know it.
Bill O’Lielly would most definintely be declaring this act an act of “wafare against the family and the American way of life.
Pat Robertson would be declaring the vice president, the president and the entire Democratic Party “willing
accomplices of the Devil himself.”
Newton LeRoy Gingrich would most assuredly be advising the rest of the world that this is clear evidence of the total disintigeration of the nuclear family and society as we know it
is tough for us humans. We always project onto events and other people our own shit!
Oh c’mon, the Cheney’s use their “lesiban” daughter when ever convient. Cheney can talk about her, but John Kerry can’t…I just want to know if Dick is going to see his grandchild.
And then think about all the soilders who will not become grandfathers because he lied to get us into a war with Iraq.
I don’t give a damn about Cheney’s “joyful moment” or enjoyment. Or Mary’s. She basks in the immunity of her daddy’s ill-gotten power and money while helping him campaign to deny that kind of freedom to everyone else. The Cheny and Bush offspring are the princesses and princes of the GOP’s New Feudalism — above the laws and the pathetic excuse for moral standards that placed them in their positions of impunity in the first place.
The mere notion that these people are worth being singled out for congratulation says volumes about how deeply we’ve fallen into royalty-worship.
Dave-
You call it bitter, I call it reality-based. Would you devote a new thread to congratulating Osama or Charlie Manson on becoming grandfathers?
they aren’t part of the United States government. I know, more to the point, that I wouldn’t post a thread to ridicule Osama or Manson’s grandchild or the circumstances of their birth.
She basks in the immunity of her daddy’s ill-gotten power and money while helping him campaign to deny that kind of freedom to everyone else.
Well said. That’s what makes this so disgusting! Anyone else would be catching pure hell. And can you even imagine the deafening denunciations say, Speaker-elect Pelosi would have to endure if one of her daughters was a lesbian?
I’d give the Cheneys the same amount of respect they’d give to you or me or the 95% percent of people they consider to be the hired help.
Cheney’s “joyful moment” should be from behind bars, somewhere like the federal penitentiary in Lorton VA., and not some country club prison.
and, maybe only Dick Cheney can create equal rights for GLBTs.
It’s no one’s business. Right. Then Dick Cheney and the rest of his family should keep their noses out of other people’s business. His daughter Mary worked hard to enable the administration of Bush and her Daddy. They had no compunction about ruining other people’s lives with their anti-gay marriage amendments and all their other gay-bashing crap. No. When Lynne Cheney went on national television to self-advertise her mater dolorosa act as the aggrieved Mom who had been violated by John Kerry’s reference to her daughter’s interest in women as sexual partners we saw the true hypocritical face of the Cheney family. No. Let her have her baby. Who cares? It’s no big deal for the rest of us.
I wish the child a happy life and better values than her mother or grandparents have ever shown. with that out of the way, I will say I despise the Cheney clan!!!! Cheney and his wife both waited until the vote on the national marriage amendment was over before speaking out against it. Mary, by helping her bastard of a father get re-elected, worked to make sure the rest of the GLBT Community could not have the privaledges that her father’s blood money pays for.
until reading your post and DaveW. It’s really sickening! Super sickening how she has rights that other gay people don’t have because of the green backs. I’m glad she’s shaking everyone up and I have always felt that she has done horrors for those who are gay but being able to have a child because you’re rolling in it while ruining that chance for other gay Americans is the pinnacle of privileged and princess.
Breed on Mary Cheney! Breed on!