Leave Mary Cheney alone
Make no mistake. This forum unequivocally supports same-sex marriage. But intense news coverage of Mary Cheney's alleged pregnancy has really gone too far. Mary isn't the vice-president of the United States. She and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, deserve the same measure of privacy as any other couple expecting a child. On this score, I find myself agreeing with TigerHawk and National Review Online, forums not known for their enthusiastic support of same-sex marriage.
I endorse the broader sentiment underlying Family Pride's statement regarding Virginia's failure to treat all families with equal dignity. But the goal is a society where the birth of a child to parents named Mary and Heather is celebrated as the happy event that it is, and not manipulated for political gain. Mary is neither a pawn nor an enemy of this cause. I hope that those of us who support same-sex marriage -- or at least are willing to give that proposition a chance to prevail through resort to legal and political process -- can give Mary Cheney the room to decide whether she, no more and no less than her comparably successful sister, Elizabeth, wishes to enter the political fray on her own terms.
I endorse the broader sentiment underlying Family Pride's statement regarding Virginia's failure to treat all families with equal dignity. But the goal is a society where the birth of a child to parents named Mary and Heather is celebrated as the happy event that it is, and not manipulated for political gain. Mary is neither a pawn nor an enemy of this cause. I hope that those of us who support same-sex marriage -- or at least are willing to give that proposition a chance to prevail through resort to legal and political process -- can give Mary Cheney the room to decide whether she, no more and no less than her comparably successful sister, Elizabeth, wishes to enter the political fray on her own terms.
4 Comments:
One could disagree, noting that political change in this area will only come when politicians want everyone to get the same treatment their family gets. Note how Pete Domenici universalized his concern about his daughter's health problems; he didn't just try to get her care, he pushed for parity for conditions like hers in the relevant Medicare and insurance statutes.
Society decays when an elite can "make its own rules," and force the rabble to comply with a common standard. Indeed, as David Kuo has noted, peopel at the top of this administration have been openly contemptuous of the "base." This is just one more example of failure to practice what they preach, and a modern-day Gibbons would note the parallels to the roman empire.
from Gibbons:
"The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful." Chapter 2
Here's an article on why she matters:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=gcWL0OW8Cm5rUywlMPDdyW%3D%3D
An excerpt from that piece (referring to conservative responses to this, not yours):
"A reader writes: 'You take a reasonable stance on this Mary Cheney thing: none at all.' . . . .In fact, it is now the only coherent conservative position on a matter made impossible to avoid by the living, breathing reality of a mother and her child. Their position is nothing at all. Neither for amending the constitution to bar gay marriage nor against it. Neither for gay marriage nor against it. Neither supportive of Mary Cheney nor hostile. After two decades of debate, discussion, state initiatives, lawsuits, protests, custody battles, and on and on, the last coherent conservative position is nothing. On Mary Cheney, they are forced to take a stand. But any stand either attacks the base of the party or attacks someone they know and love. So they have no alternative but to stand very still, say nothing, and hope that someone changes the subject. It is as close to intellectual and moral bankruptcy as one can imagine."
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