Re: The gay thing - interesting column

From: KMitch429 (kmitch429_at_aol.compurple)
Date: 10/22/04 

Date: 22 Oct 2004 20:59:41 GMT

Cheneys' outrage is laughable

10/21/2004
 
  By ELLEN GOODMAN

Let me see if I have this right. The Republicans are now accusing the Democrats
of being insensitive to gay Americans? Or to one gay American at least?
After John Kerry mentioned Mary Cheney in the third debate, talk radio hosts
finally found a lesbian they wanted to protect. Even the homophobic wing of
cable TV rallied to the support of a family with a gay offspring.

Meanwhile *** Cheney described himself as "a pretty angry father." And Lynne
Cheney said of the senator: "This is not a good man."

What's wrong with this picture?

Remember way back in the 1980s, when *** Cheney racked up one of the most
anti-gay voting records in the House of Representatives? In 1988, he was one of
13 members who even voted against funding for AIDS testing and research when it
was still called a "gay plague." Well, Cheney's come as far as many other
Americans, and for the same essential reason. The more people in our families,
workplaces and communities come out of the closet, the harder it is to regard
them as deviants who need to be cured or converted or jailed.

Mary was by no means outed on national television. She was already out. She
lives with a longtime partner, wears a ring and has worked professionally
marketing Coors beer to the gay community. She and Heather Poe sat at the
convention under the camera lights with the rest of the family. She is not a
"child" but the director of vice presidential campaign operations and her
father's chief confidante.

Cheney has talked openly about his "gay daughter," in one of the rare moments
that warm his icy persona. He even opposes the constitutional amendment against
same-sex marriage that the president supports so ardently. If Cheney has an
argument with anybody it's with his running mate, George Bush. But the "pretty
angry father" hasn't directed any of that anger at the Republican platform he's
running on.

As for Lynne Cheney, who called Kerry's comments "a cheap and tawdry political
trick," what does she call the RNC mailing that warned evangelicals that if
Kerry is elected the Bible will be banned and gay marriage will be the law of
the land? High-minded?

At the GOP convention, Alan Keyes, the Republican candidate for Illinois
senator, said homosexuality "is based simply on the premise of selfish
hedonism." When asked if Mary was a selfish hedonist, he answered, "of course
she is." Did Lynne call Keyes a bad man?

Cheney said this incident proves Kerry "will say and do anything in order to
get elected." What about the anti-gay-marriage amendments gracing the ballot of
11 states, including swing states? Did he criticize the campaign's use of the
gay issue to get evangelicals to the polls? Who will say and do anything to get
elected?

Two days after the debate, there was a rally dubbed "Mayday for Marriage." The
"nonpartisan" crowd full of Bush-Cheney buttons was as anti-gay as it gets. Did
the candidates distance themselves from Mayday?

Mary Cheney is an endangered species, a gay Republican in a campaign so hostile
that even the Log Cabin Republicans refused to endorse Bush this year. She is
loyal to her father, who is loyal to the president. Is it any wonder that many
people in the gay community think she is working for the enemy? Yes, Kerry
could have made his point - that homosexuality is not a choice - without her
help. And yes, the impulse to give a candidate's families some space and
privacy is the right one.

But what Mary presumably wants in terms of privacy and acceptance is at heart
of the gay community's pursuit of full and equal rights, which her party
opposes. It's the people who still regard "lesbian" as a dirty word who most
criticized the senator for using it.

Washington Post Writers Group
 

(remove purple from up above, never from my life!)

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