When John Kerry mentioned in passing during a 2004 presidential debate that Dick Cheney has a lesbian daughter, it was considered scandalous. Lynne Cheney questioned Kerry’s character and said “he is not a good man.”
If Kerry’s an awful person for simply acknowledging the Cheneys’ gay daughter, I’m anxious to know what Dick and Lynne think about some of their friends in the GOP’s religious right base after leading activists responded to their daughter’s pregnancy.
I wasn’t planning on mentioning this story; Mary Cheney is a private citizen with no role in politics. Her personal life is of no interest to me whatsoever. But what is noteworthy is the conservative reaction to the fact that she and her partner of 15 years are expecting.
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.
Indeed, for many conservative Republican activist, Mary Cheney’s decision to have a baby is practically a personal insult.
Some of these folks really didn’t hold back.
Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America described the pregnancy as “unconscionable.”
“It’s very disappointing that a celebrity couple like this would deliberately bring into the world a child that will never have a father,” said Crouse, a senior fellow at the group’s think tank. “They are encouraging people who don’t have the advantages they have.” […]
Carrie Gordon Earll, a policy analyst for the conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family, expressed empathy for the Cheney family but depicted the newly announced pregnancy as unwise.
“Just because you can conceive a child outside a one-woman, one-man marriage doesn’t mean it’s a good idea,” said. “Love can’t replace a mother and a father.”
Better yet, Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute of the Media Research Center, said, “I think it’s tragic that a child has been conceived with the express purpose of denying it a father. Fatherhood is important and always will be, so if Mary and her partner indicate that that is a trivial matter, they’re shortchanging this child from the start.” Knight added, “Mary and Heather can believe what they want, but what they’re seeking is to force others to bless their non-marital relationship as marriage” and to “create a culture that is based on sexual anarchy instead of marriage and family values.”
TownHall’s Kevin McCullough offered this gem: “Knowing from scientific data that children excel best when given the full and natural parental structure of one mother and one father, is it moral to bring a child into such a scenario – purposefully, simply to stroke one’s own desire to have a child – sort of like a new handbag, or pair of shoes?”
Being a Cheney is not enough to shield a person from bigotry, apparently.
It’s also probably worth noting that the expecting parents won’t have it easy in the commonwealth of Virginia.
According to the Washington Post, which broke the story about the pregnancy, the couple lives in Virginia, where voters last month passed an amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriage and civil unions. Poe won’t have many legal rights over the child, says Jennifer Chrisler, Family Pride’s executive director. There apparently aren’t any laws in Virginia specifically laying out the parental rights of same-sex couples, according to Equity Virginia, an advocacy group.
“In the state of Virginia, it’s very difficult for lesbian couples to have children together,” says Chrisler. “Heather Poe will have no legal relationship with her child. She can’t adopt as a second parent. She won’t have her name on the birth certificate.”
What can the couple do to give Poe some legal rights as a parent?
“Move to Maryland,” Chrisler advises.
How very sad.