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Dear Mary Cheney |
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You embraced a serpent, the Republican Party in this case, and you've been bitten. George Bush made noises about tolerance while courting our vote, but he shed that skin once the U.S. and Massachusetts Supreme Courts struck down discriminatory laws. The conservative right seized upon the rantings of homophobic zealots to raise money and support. Bush is working to appease the conservative right with his threat of a constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage if the courts can't straighten out this mess and your father, Dick Cheney, is standing right behind him. So what are you going to do? Your smiling and wholesome face is on a milk carton in national advertisements. "Have you seen me?" the milk carton says. Beneath the photo, some details:
WHO: Mary Cheney, 34, openly gay daughter of VP Cheney People are heading to DearMary.com, sending you postcards, pleading with you to stand up and say something. It's time to rise to the occasion. Your friends say you never wanted to be an activist. Rosa Parks didn't, either. She just wanted a seat on the bus and she was brave enough to claim it. One day, a national gay civil rights museum will be built. Will your name join a long list of obstructions on a plaque? We hope not. We'd rather you be a hero. This is the thing: Your struggle for acceptance, within your family and community, symbolizes what so many of us face. You have an opportunity to step up to the plate and say, "I have a life partner. My family has accepted us and loves us, regardless of what my father might do politically. The world is not going to end if other families, and the friends of those families, do the same." A representative from the Human Rights Campaign talked one day in the fall to a gay student coalition attending a weekend summit on issues homosexuals face. The political climate, she said, has left us no alternative but to fight for the right to marry, ready or not. If passed, a constitutional ban would be an insurmountable hurdle for decades to come. So even those of us who have not taken up political roles, who may or may not respect the institution of marriage, must show our family and friends that we pose no threat to morals or heterosexuality. We live and love as they do. We have families, we have feelings, we have rights. You're not a civilian, Mary Cheney, so you have a higher obligation. You put yourself in this position through political activity on your father's behalf and your earlier career choice. You asked gays and lesbians to buy Coors beer, but you don't want to defend Your rights and ours? Remember how everyone held their breaths, hoping your life partner would stand beside you on the stage at the 2000 Republican Convention. Your sister's husband was there, but, sadly, your partner was not. Remember your statement in 2002, after you joined the Republican Unity Coalition? "We can make sexual orientation a non-issue for the Republican Party," you said, "and we can help achieve equality for all gay and lesbian Americans." Your father tried to make it a non-issue, on a federal level anyway, saying the states should be left to their own devises in deciding what constitutes marriage. The courts trumped him, with rulings that find unconstitutional laws that abridge the rights of homosexuals to love and to marry. The conservative ideology of state rights have fallen by the wayside as homophobes contemplate with horror what goes on in our bedrooms. (Why are they so fixated on a private act? Who among us would want to picture Jimmy Swaggart in that hotel room with a prostitute?) We have no choice but to demonstrate we are no different from heterosexuals. We are their brothers, sisters, sons, fathers, mothers, aunts and uncles. We are their friends and children. The weddings in San Francisco, and now in New Mexico, are beautiful to witness. These are magic times. The circumstances are extraordinary.
Newsom is a heterosexual and a Catholic. Some of his family members, it is reported, are none too pleased with him for allowing gays and lesbians to marry. He also has drawn the wrath of the Family Research Council and every other conservative family values group in the nation. But the mayor's sense of fairness outweighed his fear. He is doing what is morally right. Mary Cheney, your stake is so much bigger. The president and your father stand ready to negate your life and our lives. Our lives are the best protest we can offer. Many of us have no desire to mirror what is historically a heterosexual institution. We simply want acknowledgment, under the law and tax codes of this land. Like Mayor Newsom, we want what's fair. I told my 19-year-old daughter that I was writing this piece and would for the first time be publicly acknowledging my own sexual orientation. If I'm going to ask Mary to do it, I have to be willing to step up to the plate. "What's the big deal, Mom?" she asked. "This is 2004!" |
Mary Cheney, the time has come to summon your courage.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom attended George W. Bush's State of the Union Speech, heard Bush's anti-gay comments about same-sex marriages, and took action by allowing his city officials to give marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples