Pulitzer Prize winning author Stacy Schiff responds to Hetero Darth Cheney's hostile reaction to questions by Wolf Blitzer about Cheney's lesbian daughter. A link to the full column by the New York Times guest columnist follows the excerpt below.
(See the Cheney/Wolf Raging Hetero Hormones Video.)
Mad About Mary
by Stacy Schiff
Once upon a time, asking about someone’s children was like talking about the weather. Then again, once upon a time talking about the weather was also like talking about the weather — not a portal into the political or the apocalyptic. . .
Last week Wolf Blitzer asked Dick Cheney about his pregnant lesbian daughter. The vice president looked as if his arm had made contact with that meat grinder. Mr. Blitzer was, he growled, seriously out of line. . .
Mr. Cheney has openly promoted an anti-gay agenda. His own base has called his daughter’s pregnancy unconscionable. Family values have been his calling card. And our Prohibitionist vice president can’t summon the courage to address the gin mill in the basement?
What the vice president’s nonresponse did deliver was a very cogent message: the rules apply to you, but not to us. It’s our privacy, your patriotism; our delusion, your sacrifice; our tax cuts, your kids. After all, as Mr. Cheney so tellingly said of his Republican critics, “I’m the vice president, and they’re not.” The part for which some of us have no stomach is the sense of entitlement.
An annoying thing about children is that they nudge you toward the high road and the long view. They demand pesky things like open-mindedness, self-denial, accountability, leadership and occasionally even integrity — qualities that appear to have packed up and gone home with Hans Blix. Once upon a time, you might have termed them family values.
So as to spare Mr. Cheney any further misadventures in this minefield, I did a little research for him. Several years ago, Ms. Baldrige foresaw his predicament. “A lesbian’s parents may be the victims of probing, mean questions from their friends,” she wrote. “Hopefully, they will answer unequivocally that they stand by their child and accept her decision.”
As for gay and lesbian couples, they are families, too, in Ms. Baldrige’s book. They are also increasingly common, “so people who feel shy and uptight with them are just going to have to get over it.” Alternatively, they are welcome to talk about the weather.
Read the whole thing...
Gay Mary Cheney Dick Cheney Homophobia Wolf Blitzer Lesbian CNN Stacy Schiff Gay Marriage
