The continued reference to Mary Cheney by the Dems

Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

and there is the irresponsibilty Lash...someone on page 11 of this thread reads you talking of the Kerry daughters abortions and never goes to page 12 to hear you say you don't know if they ever really had an abortion....they just tell a few friends you know I read today that the Kerry daughters have had abortions.......

Don't let Dan Rather get ahold of this!

(Really Bear, you're overdramatic act is doing a shotty job of obscuring her very valid point. )

Kerry will use any diversion available to him to keep voters from thinking of his miserable Senate record.

PrincessP--

Why do you say Lynne was in denial? The Cheney's have welcomed Mary's lover into the family...

She was just not wanting her daughter's sexuality to become political fodder. Wouldn't you protect your child's privacy?

By Dave Cullen and Daryl Lindsey
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August 01, 2000 | DENVER -- Lynne Cheney's discomfort with the media's interest in her lesbian daughter Mary, televised nationally over the weekend, threatens to ignite the first firestorm of the so-far superbly scripted Republican convention.

On Sunday, when ABC's Cokie Roberts started to ask the GOP vice presidential nominee's wife about having a daughter who has "declared she's openly gay," an irate Lynne Cheney shot back: "Mary has never declared such a thing." Cheney then blasted the media for its interest in the story, and chided Roberts: "I'm surprised, Cokie, that even you would want to bring it up on this program."


"I have two wonderful daughters. I love them very much. They are bright; they are hard-working; they are decent. And I simply am not going to talk about their personal lives," Cheney told Roberts.

Nationally, many gay leaders were alarmed by Lynne Cheney's remarks. The distaste implied by her use of the term "such a thing" to describe her daughter Mary's sexuality didn't come across as ringing acceptance. And some see it as an attempt to force Mary Cheney -- who has in fact publicly "declared" herself a lesbian, and has worked as the gay and lesbian corporate relations manager for Coors Brewing Co. -- back into the closet, at least on the campaign trail.

The controversy could bubble over this week, since friends of Mary Cheney say she's planning to bring her life partner, the woman she shares a house with in Conifer, Colo., to the Republican convention. She has reportedly postponed plans to attend business school this fall in order to campaign with her father, former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

Gay leaders wasted no time blasting Lynne Cheney's remarks to Roberts. "They were horrible," said Human Rights Campaign spokesman David Smith. "She said she is proud of both her daughters, but there was definitely a sense this was one aspect of who her daughter is that she was not proud of. That came through loud and clear."

"The fact that [Mary] is lesbian is not a private matter," he continued. "It was part of her job. She reached out to the gay and lesbian community for a major U.S. corporation. She was on the cutting edge of changing how a corporation reaches out to gay and lesbian customers."

Cheney herself told a lesbian magazine that she went to work for Coors "because I knew several other lesbians who were very happy here." Friends and colleagues say she has declared her sexuality in public on many occasions.

Denver colleagues laughed at the assertion that Mary has never "declared" her sexuality. "Of course she did," said Jim McNulty, co-founder of the organization that puts on the popular Aspen Gay Ski Week, which Coors has supported throughout Mary Cheney's tenure. "Did she tell me she was a lesbian? She said, 'This is my life partner.' That's exactly how she put it. They kissed and hugged, which is wonderful."

"It's been widely known for a long time that she's gay and not shy about it," says Elizabeth Birch, HRC executive director, interviewed Monday in Philadelphia where she attended a luncheon to honor gay Republicans. "I think she's between a rock and a hard place. The issue now will be whether she's locked in the vault -- literally or figuratively," Birch offered.

Friends of Cheney say they're "pretty sure" her girlfriend plans to join her at the Republican convention some time this week, and that Cheney wants the emotional support. "If I were in that vortex in Philadelphia, I'd want her to be there," said one close friend. "And I think if [the girlfriend] has it in her power to be there, she'll be there."

But he cautioned that the girlfriend's identity might remain hidden through the festivities. "There are ways of staying out of sight," he said, though he noted she "doesn't expect to remain private forever," he said. Salon and other news organizations know at least the first name of Cheney's girlfriend, and a photo of the pair is in circulation, but to date her identity has not been revealed in order to protect her privacy.

Some of Mary Cheney's friends agree with gay leaders' take that Lynne Cheney was attempting to shut down the sexuality story by shaming the press out of discussing "private" family matters. "She was trying to divide the world into those who get to ask personal questions about their family, and those who don't," a friend of Mary's said. "She looks like she thinks she has found a way to build an iron cage around the gay canary."

Friends say Mary Cheney came out to her parents at some point in her 20s, and that her father seemed to take it better than her mother. Father and daughter are known to travel together, enjoying hunting and fishing, but Mary Cheney is said to be less close to her mother.

"Declaring" such a thing publicly, and being gay are two completely different things. You don't get the distinction?

Mary Cheney has not gone on public record as being gay. It is a matter of her private life, which she has shared privately. [..]
McGreevey is out publicly. Ellen is out publicly. Rosie O'Donnell is out publicly.

Feb. 23, 2004 issue - In a campaign consumed with Vietnam War records and elusive weapons of mass destruction, the candidates have so far tiptoed around the season's touchiest wedge issue: gay marriage. Though advisers to George W. Bush hinted that the president would soon throw his support behind an amendment to the U.S. Constitution limiting marriage to the union of one man and one woman, he has yet to do so. And John Kerry hasn't been eager to detail his more nuanced stance against both gay marriage and any constitutional effort to ban it. The issue holds dangers for both sides. While Bush could rally his conservative base by backing an amendment, he doesn't want to alienate moderate voters by seeming mean-spirited. Kerry wants to stake out middle ground without seeming like another out-of-step Massachusetts liberal. Yet with grass-roots activists across the country ratcheting up the volume last week, the candidates may be dragged into the center of the latest cultural battle sooner than they'd like.

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Activists on both sides are launching guerrilla strikes. Conservatives have railed against same-sex marriage on talk radio and e-mail networks for months. Now they're lobbying in statehouses across the country. In San Francisco, hundreds of gay couples raced to impromptu weddings on the steps of city hall's ornate rotunda, where Mayor Gavin Newsom defiantly began issuing same-sex licenses in apparent violation of California law. "I don't accept that I'm breaking the law," Newsom told NEWSWEEK. "This is about not allowing discrimination." In Massachusetts last week, foes of gay marriage scrambled to pass a constitutional ban. They failed but will try again next month. And in the most audacious surprise attack yet, a new Web site targeted Mary Cheney, the openly lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney. Within an hour of its launch, DearMary.com attracted 100 emotional letters pleading with her to weigh in against a constitutional amendment. "Where is your courage, Mary?" asked one. "Your community needs you to voice your dissent."

As director of vice presidential operations for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, Mary Cheney makes an inviting target. In 2000 the Cheney family insisted that Mary was a private citizen and off-limits to the press. Even so, her presence seemed to bolster the "compassionate conservative" image the Bush-Cheney ticket hoped to portray. After her father became veep, Mary joined the gay-friendly Republican Unity Coalition and gave speeches encouraging the GOP to reach out to women, minorities and gays. "We can make sexual orientation a nonissue for the Republican Party, and we can help achieve equality for all gay and lesbian Americans,"

Kerry appears to be collapsing over at the IEM, where people invest their money in a bet on the elections' outcome ...

If the Mary Cheney remark turns out to be this race's "defining moment", your politics are in a more sorry state still than I'd thus far held imaginable.

nah... the issue is about how SOME people decide UNILATERALLY what can be discussed and what cannot... and how they expect everyone else to acquiesce complacently... as if they were deferring to some "higher authority".