Talk about flip-flopping. Dick Cheney, who until now, despite having an openly lesbian daughter, has steadfastly stuck with the party line on gay marriage, suddenly seems to be a little more open-minded about the issue.
Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter Mary is a lesbian, spoke supportively about gay relationships on Tuesday, saying “freedom means freedom for everyone.”
At a campaign rally in this Mississippi River town, Cheney was asked about his stand on gay marriage – an issue for which his boss, President Bush, has pushed for a constitutional amendment to ban such unions.
“Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it’s an issue our family is very familiar with,” Cheney told an audience that included his daughter. \”With the respect to the question of relationships, my general view is freedom means freedom for everyone … People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.
“The question that comes up with the issue of marriage is what kind of official sanction or approval is going to be granted by government? Historically, that’s been a relationship that has been handled by the states. The states have made that fundamental decision of what constitutes a marriage,” he said.
From the tone of the article and Cheney’s remarks, it appears that contrary to Bush’s drive to amend the Constitution, Cheney supports letting the states decide for themselves how to handle the issue.
Interesting — but I have to admit, I’m easily cynical enough to really wonder about the timing of this comment after so many years of simply backing Bush’s bigotry. I’m thinking that T has the right idea…
My theory? The Republican convention is just around the corner, and polls are showing that Bush and Kerry are pretty much in a statistical dead heat. Could this be a ploy by the Bush administration to soften the image of the Bush/Cheney ticket on the same sex marriage issue, since so many people who are opposed to same sex marriage are also opposed to a constitutional amendment banning it? Also, gay voters gave Bush about 1 million votes in 2000. Now with many of the “Austin 12”—the hand-picked gay & lesbian Republicans with whom Bush met after he refused to meet with the Log Cabin Republicans—bolting, could this be an attempt to at least keep a few of those 1 million voters who cast ballots for Bush last time around?
Call me cynical, but I think this may be a very thinly veiled attempt to salvage at least a few of those votes.
Gotta admit, that sounds about right to me.
iTunes: “Making Plans for Nigel” by Primus from the album Miscellaneous Debris (1992, 3:35).