The continued reference to Mary Cheney by the Dems

Just wondering, Lola....what is your opinion of why the large number of Democrats are making the same "stink"?

Just wondering, Just Wonders...what is your opinion of why the large number of people in the south forty years ago, of either party, thought negroes should ride in the back of the bus?

Blatham, at least you're consistent. I originally asked you how does that explain 40% after this post.

Now I understand. You think yourmoral ideal is more important than the general opinion during a campaign for President. You even went so far as to call it irrelevant. That's an admirable, idealistic opinion, Blatham, but it's absurd to seriously assert it in a political discussion… and think it trumps reality.

Now on the issue of Gay Marriage, I agree with you across the board. Even if the word "Civil Union" were to be passed in it's place, Joe pointed out that would make them, what, unionized? How do you ask if someone's married? I suspect a lawsuit would soon be won since the answer to "Are you married" could be used to discriminate… so would we then end up with a "Don't ask" policy regarding marriage? That doesn't seem all that good for the institution. Now as much as I enjoy being in complete agreement with you, reality is calling.

Blatham's opinion is only slightly less important than Bill's who comes in with a powerful 1/120,000,000th of the decision to decide all by himself. I'm guessing about 120,000,000 will show up to vote and each of those constituent's opinion is just as valuable as mine. Now sure it could be argued that I live in a swing state, but that won't help you much. :wink:

Your arguments about it being a continuation of hateful thought like Black and Women's suffrage and hideous discrimination is compelling and in my opinion spot on. But frankly, its relevance is limited to only those who agree, like I do, that it is spot on. That isn't the discussion we've been having here.



Blatham, you are arguing the wrong side, my man. The mere mention of Joe McCarthy sets off a distasteful flow of recognition of why finger pointing and labeling is a sleazy, frowned upon strategy. In this case, Mary Cheney is just another human being, so why the need to place another label on her? McCarthy is perhaps the very best example of why what Kerry did was wrong.



Of course it is Blatham… how can you deny it? Whether you're being hateful or "revealing hypocrisy"… whether your purpose is just or unjust, the daughter gets the starring roll as the fulcrum either way. Hence, regardless of your purpose, or degree of nobility in your pursuit, you are nonetheless pointing fingers and labeling your opponent's daughter. Zoom back away from that tree and look at the beautiful (and ugly) forest. Labeling and pointing fingers at someone's daughter has always and likely will always be frowned upon… regardless of how noble your intent.
Indeed. But so far I don't appear bright enough or persuasive enough to drag you, kicking and screaming, along with me. :wink:



Yup. Bush's position further fueled the hell storm debate between the gay community (and "decent people" everywhere) and the Christian Right (and "decent folks" everywhere). I agree completely that his inconsiderate words and, IMHO, idiotic position have caused a great deal more discomfort than Kerry's remark. This does absolutely nothing to excuse Kerry's remark, however. I think you're familiar with "2 wrongs don't make a right.", Blatham. Even if labeling Mary somehow eased some of the discomfort of the many Bush has insulted, it remains wrong to place that burden on her. It should not be up to Kerry whether or not Mary becomes the focal point of the debate.

Martin Luther King was perhaps the greatest voice against discrimination there will ever be. He volunteered to be the focal point and that decision probably cost him more discomfort than most us will ever know. Eventually, it cost him his very life. He is probably the most celebrated figure in American History today… I'd wager he has the most monuments dedicated to him, at least, and for damn good reason. His courageous leadership delivered millions from hatred and ignorance. Despite the tremendous impact he had on the American values in years to come, it was still his decision to do it. No one but Martin Luther King himselfhad a right to place that burden on him. I know this example is over the top and it is intentionally so. If no one had a right to push MLK into that spotlight, despite the tremendous impact he would have, then certainly no one has a right to do it to Mary Cheney, either.

(Wow, that's way over the top… oh well )
The sleaze sits most prominently with bigots, of course but dirty-pool players fit the bill as well. No degree of guilt from one end justifies the other.




False. While the example does everything you say it does, it also "forwards" (perfect word, btw) the hatred right at Mary Cheney. We all know the hatred exists. To pretend pointing out a perfect target for it, in front of 50,000,000 people, won't encourage some to direct their hatred her way is the height of denial. At best, it was an accidental injury… that he should apologize for, anyway.

As the Christians are fond of saying: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. :wink:

bill

Moral questions are, I think, the toughest sorts of questions to weave one's way through with clarity and consistency, and with whatever objectivity such a subjective realm might allow.

But I also think that your nation's Bill of Rights and Constitution go a very long way towards achieving precisely such a moral framework. The social and political evils and injustices which your founders wisely sought to avoid are all related to inequality and the relegation of certain citizens to an inferior status. This valuation towards maximal equality and fairness which the founders held dear was begun in Athens two and a half thousand years ago. It is a moral principle at the foundation of what we consider not merely American, but civilized.

I fault Kerry, for pointing to Mary, no more than I would fault someone who peed in a river that was flooding the countryside. I fault Bush and his crowd for helping tear down the dykes.

The hatred you mention in your second last paragraph is not made greater by Kerry's indication, even if that hatred might become more isolated on Mary. But the hatred is made greater by almost everything this administration has done in relation to homosexuality.

Kerry can apologize if he feels he ought to. Or not. I think the issue so peripheral to the greater problem that it isn't worth the mention.

Don't Ask? Do Tell!
I was annoyed when Edwards and Kerry brought Mary Cheney's name into the debate. I realize they did it to inflame members of the religious right against Bush, which I think was a stupid mistake because nothing is going to shake the adoration of the religious right. But the Cheney's outrage is also politically motivated. To me, the Cheney's behavior is worse because they are Mary's parents and are exploiting her for their own hyprocritical political purposes.---BBB

Don't Ask? Do Tell!
When Alan Keyes called Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist," the Cheneys stayed silent. So why did they go ballistic when John Kerry praised the family's tolerance?
By Garance Franke-Ruta, an American Prospect senior editor.
Web Exclusive: 10.18.04

Ever since John Kerry mentioned Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary Cheney, during the heavily watched third presidential debate on October 13, Republicans have been going ballistic about the supposed invasion of privacy. But a look at the record shows that Mary Cheney's name and sexual identity have, over the years, been frequently invoked within the Republican Party itself by individuals with a wide range of agendas.

Mary Cheney has provided Republicans like her father an opportunity to express a grudging tolerance of gays and to woo moderate voters, as Dick Cheney did when he spoke of his daughter in August, saying, "Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue our family is very familiar with," and, when asked his stance on gay marriage, "People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to." But at the same time, Mary Cheney has been a focal point for anti-gay sentiment within the Republican Party and a frequent subject of intraparty criticism that the vice president and his wife have done little or nothing to publicly rebut.

Little over a month before Kerry said, "I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as," Illinois GOP Senate candidate Alan Keyes condemned homosexuality as "selfish hedonism" in a satellite-radio interview during the Republican national convention. Asked if Mary Cheney was also "a selfish hedonist," Keyes replied, "Of course she is."

Dick and Lynne Cheney, who have roundly criticized Kerry's pro-gay remarks, said nothing in the face of Keyes' highly derogatory comments. This should come as no surprise: There is a long history of suspicion in moral conservative circles that the vice president has not been adequately supportive of their agenda because of his gay daughter. And that has led the vice president and his family to be exceptionally tolerant of those who talk about his daughter's sexuality -- as long as they are anti-gay.

To the conservative moralists, Mary Cheney has been a kind of Trojan-horse conduit for the "homosexual agenda," importing a foreign philosophy straight into the heart of Republicanism. According to this line of thinking, she has corrupted her father, who has failed to advocate for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as vigorously as the president; her mother, who went so far as to once praise Elton John; and even Cheney aide Mary Matalin, who was involved with the Republican Unity Coalition, a gay-straight alliance looking to moderate the party's stance toward gays.

The Culture and Family Institute (CFI), an affiliate of the conservative group Concerned Women for America, was at the forefront of promoting this line of thinking after the last presidential election. In April 2002, CFI issued a press release condemning the vice president's daughter: "Mary Cheney Joins Homosexual Activist Group: Organization Wants to Make Homosexuality ?'Non-Issue' in the GOP."

"This ?'unity' coalition will not unify the Republican Party but tear it apart," then-CFI senior policy analyst Peter LaBarbera said in a statement. "It trivializes people's deeply held religious convictions by seeking to make homosexuality a ?'non-issue' in the GOP. And it insults advocates of healthy morality by comparing opposition to homosexuality -- the clear teaching of Christianity and other major religions -- to racism. Catering to a Republican brand of homosexual activism will hurt support for the GOP among the party's core base of religious -- and moral-minded voters."

In 2001, CFI had expressed concerns about what it dubbed "the Cheney factor," recapitulating the story of election 2000 as one in which religious conservatives were repelled by Cheney-instigated wavering on the question of gay rights on account of his "errant" daughter, as the conservative Reverend Jerry Falwell dubbed Mary Cheney in 2000.

"As the campaign proceeded, pro-family opponents of organized homosexuality grew increasingly apprehensive at Vice President Cheney's sympathy for the ?'gay' activist cause," wrote three commentators at the CFI in 2001. "Homosexual activists used the Mary Cheney connection to lobby Republicans to abandon their opposition to their agenda. Second Lady Lynne Cheney -- after initially reacting angrily to a question posed by ABC newswoman Cokie Roberts about her daughter's sexuality -- has begun to use rhetoric favored by homosexual activists."

That angry maternal response -- just like the one we are seeing today -- is the kind of thing moral conservatives want to see from parents of gays. "My daughter has never declared such a thing," Lynne Cheney acidly told Roberts in 2000 of her gay daughter's sexual orientation, even though Mary Cheney had by that time been employed by the Coors Brewing Company in Colorado as a liaison to gay and lesbian groups, and newspapers were reporting that she'd been living as an out lesbian since college.

The role of angry, defensive parent affirms for Christian conservatives their perspective on homosexuality -- that it is, in the words of Keyes, "a sin," and something to be kept hidden, like alcoholism or a history of shoplifting. "If my own daughter were a homosexual or lesbian, I would love my daughter, but I would tell her she was in sin," Keyes said in September. That his own 19-year-old daughter, Maya Keyes, also appears to be gay, according to reports in the New York Daily News and elsewhere, only made this comment more poignant.

"There's a double standard," David Smith of the Human Rights Campaign told Salon in 2000. "Lynne Cheney has no problem talking about her daughter who's married and has children, and that's not private, but Mary's relationship is."

The same double standard has applied during campaign 2004. Liz Cheney and her photogenic young daughters were prominent presences at the Republican convention in New York, but Mary Cheney, who is active in the campaign as chief of operations for the vice president, stayed silent and, for the most part, offstage.

And when Keyes labeled Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist," the Cheneys didn't react with protective familial outrage but with a mix of silence and political calculation.

"I guess I'm surprised, frankly, that you would even repeat the quote, and I'm not going to dignify it with a comment," Liz Cheney told CNN's Bill Hemmer when queried about it. Her parents, meanwhile, said nothing condemnatory. Interviewed along with her straight daughter, Lynne Cheney told Hemmer evenhandedly "There are things that we all differ about … . But we sure, here in New York and Madison Square Garden, are perfectly united behind the idea that our president for the next four years should be George [W.] Bush and the vice president, of course, Dick Cheney."

Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, could only manage a tepid reply of "inappropriate" in response to Keyes' remark. Bush strategist Matthew Dowd, in contrast, condemned Kerry's debate remarks as "outrageous."

Keyes' condemnation of the vice president's daughter has since gone on to be praised on fringe conservative Web sites read by the kind of far-right voter the Bush campaign is reaching out to. "Keyes' sex education lesson to a confused homosexual ought to be required reading in every sex education class in the country," writes Mary Mostert at AmericanDaily.com. "It might begin scaling back the flood of misery, disease and early death that await those who chose to get involved in homosexual and lesbian life styles."

While the Cheneys have refrained from speaking ill of their gay daughter, they seem to have a suspiciously high level of tolerance for Republicans who insult and disparage her. Perhaps it's because they know that in the closing weeks of an election year, being presented to the public, as per Kerry, as a model example of a family that loves and accepts a gay child -- and, even worse, believes in the "born gay" hypothesis Kerry laid out -- can only stir up old suspicions among Christian conservative voters about where the Cheney's true loyalties lie. The fear is that coming out as pro-gay -- or even just being known to have a gay child, which hard-right activists often see as an embarrassing symptom of familial failure -- will turn off exactly the kind of religious-right voters whose turnout Karl Rove has spent the last four years cultivating.

Conservative activist and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer said as much in The New York Times on October 15, calling Kerry's comments "part of a strategy to suppress traditional-values voters, to knock 1 [percent] or 2 percent off in some rural areas by causing people to turn on the president." The Wall Street Journal 's editorial board concurred, postulating that Kerry brought up Mary Cheney's sexual identity for purposes of "depressing voter turnout, specifically among Christian and other cultural conservatives."

And so the Cheneys and the Bush-Cheney campaign reacted like frightened junior-high students who have just been called "gay." Bush-Cheney campaign communications director Nicolle Devenish condemned Kerry's comments as a "crass, below-the-belt political strategy." Dick Cheney reiterated the campaign's months-old charge that Kerry is "a man who will say and do anything in order to get elected," using Kerry's comments about Mary Cheney daughter as new evidence and taking up the angry-parent role his wife adopted in 2000. "I am not speaking just as a father here, though I am a pretty angry father, but as a citizen," he said. Lynne Cheney took the same tack in a postdebate rally in Pennsylvania, "speaking as a mom and a pretty indignant mom" and condemning Kerry's comments as "a cheap and tawdry political trick."

Kerry issued a statement saying that he'd been "trying to say something positive about the way strong families deal with this issue." Perhaps. I suspect that he also wanted to remind debate watchers that there's no difference between his stance on gay marriage and the Cheneys', and awkwardly reached for the familial comparison when a different question about gay people was asked.

Nonetheless, the Cheneys' tough talk about Kerry and silence on Keyes suggests that, when it comes to the subject of their gay daughter, they're nowhere near as strong a family as Kerry is making them out to be.

BBB,

You can't counter Republicanism with logic...

Cycloptichorn

BBB

That's THE best piece I've read on this issue. Thank you very kindly.

I wonder how anyone other than the Cheneys and Keyes know whether Cheney remained silent? Maybe they had this discussion away from the TV cameras where such discussions properly belong. The issue isn't that Mary Cheney was gay or how the Cheneys feel about that or whether Kerry 'outed' her. The issue is that Kerry presumed to drag an opponent's daughter into the campaign as an issue. It is this that make it a cheap and tawdry trick. It would not have been tolerated from any Republican for any reason and under any circumstances, and it is disingenous of the left leaners, including their favored media, to excuse Kerry for it.

That's good Blatham! You damn near admitted the irrefutably obvious! Now take your other foot and put it front of that one. :wink:

No argument here. But, that's not the point!

2 weeks before the election, I think the fact that over half of ?'my fellow Americans' don't share you view is significant.


BBB-



Well done BBB. Did you see the arguments earlier in this thread about that? I applaud your open honesty, even when it's your guy doing wrong. Many of you who want to pretend it's pure spin, and have stated as much, could learn a lesson here. BBB was not spun in to believing that. I assure you; she spins the other way or not at all. :wink:

Your article a raises many valid points but in doing so it's really just taking the focus off the real offense here. Again. It's "daughter", not "lesbian. Proof? Notice that the article really does nothing to dispute the one Nimh generously provided earlier from the Chicago Tribune. (See the A2K version here.)

(Note- if BBB hadn't volunteered her views here, I would have been out of line to use them in my examples As it is, she may not like that I did...)(hope you don't mind, darlin)

OCCUM BILL wrote:


For all of you who are so concerned for Mary Cheney's privacy, why do you continue to blab blab blab on and on about her? Doesn't sound like you're really so concerned about her privacy, poor maligned sweetie. You seem to be more concerned in proving your own opinion correct. And when you consider it's Mary's mother and father who have thrown her straight into the shark pool of journalists who have been having a field day with this "story," it's pretty transparent what they're really concerned about.

If the Cheneys and others on this thread are so concerned for Mary Cheney's welfare, they should shut up about it and leave her alone. Instead, her own parents used her to distract the American public's attention from the fact that Kerry out debated Bush.......no big task, I'll admit.........however, he did it. And it's been Mary Cheney's head rolling to cover it up ever since.

Occum Bill, Foxfire...........you prove yourselves wrong. Leave the poor girl alone already!

Nope. Not wrong. It's wrong to make a member of your opponent's family a campaign issue. That's my quarrel with the whole thing. It's the quarrel of most who found the remark sleazy and self serving. It would have been no different if the discussion had been about services/opportunities for the handicapped and a reference was made to an opponent's handicapped daughter or if the discussion was about opportunities for doctors and the reference was made to an opponent's physician son or daughter. It just isn't done and, since this incident also gave the appearance of 'outing' Mary Cheney to those who hadn't given her sexual orientation a moment's thought--probably most of us--it appeared to be especially targeted at eroding Bush's base. It made Kerry look like a very un-nice man.

Lola: Had you read my posts on this thread you would already know I'm not too concerned about Mary Cheney's feelings. Heck, you and I may even have a few things common...

A desire to attack positions, without a clue what they may be, would not be one of those things. Nor would a willingness to blame the messenger to the exclusion of blaming the source of the message.

Yep, some of us enjoy the give and take of debating our positions. It's a little more challenging than shooting off your mouth without a clue what you're talking about. Kinda keeps you in check, ya know?... Well, maybe you don't.

OB
OB, have you swiped Gus' avatar, you rascal?

Now, how am I supposed to know when it's the real Gus and the cheesehead imposter?

BBB

mary cheney is gay ???

wow...

How's this BBB?

OB
OB, Thank gwad, just in time to me avoiding getting defillibrated to stop my racing heart.

BBB :wink:

Occum Bill darlin............I wouldn't for a moment want to attack your position, having not had the time to read this entire thread before responding to what you've just written. If you say you're not "too concerned" about Mary Cheney's feelings, I'll take your word for it. I'll address that remark to Foxfire alone. She seems to care about poor Mary, even though she continues to carry on about it........thus increasing her perceived injury to Mary Cheney.

Whether you care about Mary Cheney or not, you're making a mountain out of a mole hill. Can you explain to me why you feel the need to do this?

But looking back, I see this post of yours:


My problem with homophobia is not that a given person feels phobic about the thought of sex with a member of his/her own sex.........I'm not wild about thinking about having sex with a woman, myself........my problem is with those people who don't recognize their homophobic response when they propose a Constitutional amendment against homosexual marriage. Whether I want to have a lesbian relationship or not should not influence my allegiance to the rights of those who do.

And in your example above.........I can't speak for others but, I wouldn't be finding fault with Bush for commenting on Kerry's daughter's sexual orientation. I would be wanting the focus to be on the issues.

This focus on Kerry mentioning Mary Cheney in the debate is a diversion, nothing less. It's a prime example of how Republicans will stop at nothing to win. If the Cheneys are so upset about Kerry dragging their daughter and her sexual orientation into the debate, they should shut up about it. And since they've seen fit to magnify the incident, I can only assume it's not their concern for the privacy of their daugther they're really worried about. They're really worried about the outcome of the election. They seem to be even more willing than Kerry to drag her into the debate. (not that she probably minds anyway.)

Those who are trying to decide for whom to vote should pay attention to this attribute in the Cheneys. Don't think they'll be any less eager to drag the American people into a fight because it serves their own interests than they have been with their own daughter. Oh........that's right, they've already demonstrated this attribute...........we're involved in an unnecessary war, people are dying in order to make the Cheneys and the Bushs and their friends richer than they already are.

Doesn't this make you feel all safe and protected?

Lola
Lola - APPLAUSE!

BBB

Thank you BBB...........your post was magnificient as well. Take a look at this depiction of Bush...........which does he hate the most, the French or Liberty itself?



http://www.villagevoice.com/

Lola, I apologize if the tone of my last response to you was too snotty. Thanks for not escalating that (makes for much better discussion that way :wink:).

However, it's a hell of a stretch to compare a discussion on a message board to a live debate in front of 50,000,000 viewers… and at least as many going to hear about it afterwards. It was a calculated move and a miscalculation at that. Howard Stern has a career because of the word "Lesbian". There can be little doubt Kerry knew this would be discussed afterwards, so if you want to blame someone for this discussion, he's your man. He underestimated the general public's ability to see through his "cheap and tawdry trick". It merely needed to be pointed out… once. As for the Cheney's going on and on about it… have they? It seems to me that when a camera was put on them and they were asked for feedback, they gave it and that was that. We're still talking about it here because it has made for interesting discussion, that's all.

Your accusing the Cheney's of being responsible for this discussion, and others like it is preposterous. Of course, both sides will spin it, along with everything else to their maximum advantage. That's what they do. If you want to blame someone for this discussion, blame the source of the discussion… or no one at all. Without Kerry's cheap and tawdry trick, there would have been nothing to draw attention to. If the majority of the country didn't recognize trick for what it was, why is Kerry slipping after he supposedly won 3 straight debates? Was there another big impact story that I missed?

We agree: Bush's position on Gay marriage is asinine.
We agree: This topic is so trivial it shouldn't have registered much of a blip.
We agree: Some religious ideas are outdated (to say the least).

We disagree: that that's what 40% of Kerry's supporters (like BBB) and well over half of those polled found objectionable. Using his opponent's daughter is in bad taste. That is the main objection to Kerry's blunder. Taste is a subjective thing so the percentage of people in agreement is most certainly relevant. The polls are pretty clear, here, dear.