Mary Cheney Speaks Out!
February 1, 2007: Mary Cheney continues to surprise and worry me. At a recent panel at Barnard University, Mary was asked about her pregnancy.
On the postive side, she did defend herself, and by extension, all LGBT parents. This is from the NY Times:
Today at the panel discussion, inside a stuffy room decorated by portraits of stern-looking former Barnard presidents, Cindi Leive, the editor of Glamour, asked Ms. Cheney if she had anything to say to critics like Mr. Dobson.
Mr. Dobson wrote in Time magazine last month that years of social research “indicates that children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father.” He also wrote that his group believes that “birth and adoption are the purview of married heterosexual couples.” (Two of the researchers whom Mr. Dobson cited in his article have complained that Mr. Dobson distorted
their views and said they disagreed with his conclusions.) Ms. Cheney noted Mr. Dobson’s distortions of the research he cited and added:
“Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years has shown there is no difference between children raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents; what matters is being raised in a stable, loving environment.”
On the other hand, when asked about her dad’s harsh reaction to being given a chance to defend her by Wolf Blitzer, she also acted harshly:
Her father became testy last week during a CNN interview when the host Wolf Blitzer asked what he thought of conservatives — specifically James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family— who are critical of his daughter Mary’s pregnancy. In refusing to answer, Mr. Cheney told Mr. Blitzer that he was “over the line.” Ms. Cheney said in a brief interview after the panel that she was not speaking for her father, but that when she saw the interview, she also felt Mr. Blitzer had crossed a line. “He was trying to get a rise out of my father,” she said.
Blitzer’s question was legitimate and sensitively phrased. Does even a kind reference to his daughter’s life get ”a rise” out of him?
It also worries me that Mary says “This is a baby. This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate, on either side of a political issue. It is my child.”
Yeah, it’s your kid, and he or she is a blessing, but guess what - you are in a debate, as is every other LGBT parent in America. Our famlies face discrimination, slander and abuse on a daily basis. What makes you unique is that you have a wonderful opportunity to affect that debate and to help change the landscape not just for your child but so many any others. If you take that opportunity, if you resist the temptation to hide behind that wall of privacy and priviledge that your family’s status provides you, maybe 20 years from now when another Vice President’s lesbian daughter has a baby, it won’t be a “political statement.”
But for now, just by virtue of being a gay parent, you are making a statement. The only question for you is — what are you saying?