[BRIEF NOTE] Kerry, Cheney, and the L-Word

[rfmcdonald]

The furor raised south of the border when Democratic candidates have raised the fact that current Vice-President Dick Cheney's daughter Mary is a lesbian (once as praise for the Cheneys' love for their daughter, once as an example of the innate nature of sexual orientation) strikes me as amusing for what it reveals about the American right's attitudes. (That they have finally claimed to be interested defending people from attacks on the grounds of their sexual orientation is outright hilarious.)

The ever-radical Newsmax, for instance, claims that Mary Cheney was outed by Kerry, that her privacy was violated. This simply isn't so; at least as early as July 2000, Ms. Cheney's sexual orientation was a matter of public knowledge, possibly earlier given how she ran a gay and lesbian outreach program for Coors Brewing Company and lives with her girlfriend in Colorado. Since the 2000 campaign, Mary Cheney has been a public figure in the Republican Party, as this disapproving press release, about her affiliation with the Log Cabin Republicans, from the conservative group Concerned Women for America makes clear. Certainly, Kerry and Edwards were more polite than Republican candidate Alan Keyes, who attacked Mary as a selfish hedonist.

I have to agree with Timothy Noah's opinion in Slate:

Kerry's record is more tolerant than his campaign rhetoric suggests, and even his campaign rhetoric is more tolerant than Bush's. Kerry wants to make that a reason for swing voters who deplore bigotry to vote for him. I think that's what made Lynne Cheney spitting mad--she resents the implication that the Bush-Cheney campaign sold out her own gay daughter. But you know what? It did. And you know what else? The evidence that Kerry would treat gays with greater tolerance than Bush is a pretty good reason to vote for Kerry.

Is Elizabeth Edwards correct in her opinion of the Cheneys' reaction, as quoted in the New York Post?

Yesterday, the wife of Kerry running mate John Edwards also got into the act — and sparked fresh outrage — when she said Lynne Cheney had overreacted.

"I think that it indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences," Elizabeth Edwards said on ABC radio.

She accused Lynne Cheney of treating the situation "as if it's shameful to have this discussion . . . It makes me really sad that that's Lynne's response."

All that I can say one August 2002 night, when I decided to go to a GLBT dance on PEI, my parents reacted with tears and protests that I was allowing people to discover who their son was, and that they'd be so embarrassed.

I happily gave them hell for that. I'm still rather happy that I did.

I only hope that Mary does the same. Publically, preferably, but a private knock-down fight would work just as well.