[Lyikmcmb]

I was going to toss this into the "Gay Man Has Baby" thread, but the issue of gay parents -- and particularly the circumstances involving Ms. Cheney -- seems to warrant its own thread ...

Mary Cheney, Partner Expecting a Baby


Photo by: JEFF HAYNES / AFP / Getty
Mary Cheney (left) and Heather Poe at the
2004 Republican National Convention
aol.com
By Stephen M. Silverman
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 06, 2006

Mary Cheney, the openly gay daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is pregnant and due late in the spring.

As the Washington Post's "Reliable Source" column was first to report, this will be the first child for Cheney and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe.

"The Vice President and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth grandchild," Dick Cheney's press secretary, Lea Anne McBride, said in a statement. (The Cheneys' older daughter, Elizabeth, and her husband welcomed their fifth child in July.)

Mary Cheney, 37 and vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL, met Poe when they both played ice hockey during college in Colorado. A source close to the couple told the Washington Post they are "ecstatic" about the pregnancy.

Poe, 45, a former UPS manager, has been busy renovating the couple's suburban Virginia home since they moved there after the 2004 reelection campaign.

During the campaign, Mary Cheney served as director of vice presidential operations, though she disagreed with President Bush's stance on same-sex marriage.

In May, while promoting her book about her time on the trail, Now It's My Turn: A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life, Cheney told PEOPLE, "I am in favor of legalized same sex marriage."

Of her relationship with Poe, she said: "From my perspective and from Heather's perspective, we already are married. We've built a life together. We've built a home together. She's the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. The way I look at it, the laws just haven't caught up with us yet. I don't need to walk down an aisle to know about my commitment to her."

(Voters in Virginia, where the couple lives, last month approved a measure banning same sex marriage.)

When PEOPLE asked if she and Poe planned to have a family, Cheney replied at the time, "That's one Heather and I are going to have to talk about before I can tell you."

Copyright © 2006 Time Inc.

[OEMCHEAPSOFTDOWNLOAD]

Andrew Sullivan has been writing about this for the past many days ...

Lopez on Cheney

08 Dec 2006 11:33 am

Theocon Kathryn-Jean Lopez writes the following about Mary Cheney:
Unless Mary Cheney asks to be part of a political debate about this, there is no need to have a public discussion about her life. The New York Times raises the question of how/who, etc. That just seems outrageous to me. She is not the vice president. She is not the president. That's just uncalled for from anyone in the media/commentariat. I could be wrong but the media/commentators seem to be making it — Mary Cheney's pregnancy — a political issue, not the Cheneys.Yes, I think fatherhood is crucial and am opposed to redefining marriage and all the rest. And my "deafening silence" on the Mary Cheney "issue" (what nonsense) doesn't change that. But unless Mary Cheney asks to be a spokeswoman on this issue, folks ought to leave her alone.
It's a fascinating post, as is the self-imposed silence at the Corner and elsewhere on the social right. So let's unpack it, shall we? Lopez frames the issue as an egregious media seeking who the father is. I see very, very little of this, since almost everyone assumes it's an anonymous sperm donor. Then the following:Yes, I think fatherhood is crucial and am opposed to redefining marriage and all the rest. And my "deafening silence" on the Mary Cheney "issue" (what nonsense) doesn't change that.But this is absurd. Lopez aggressively favors all efforts to strip the Cheney grandchild of two mothers. Lopez has politicized this family's personal life, and attacked it viciously. Lopez supported the Virginia state constitutional amendment that will mean that the Cheney grandchild will only ever have one secure parent. Lopez favors adding this terrible insecurity to the Cheney-Poe child's life. And she wants it not to be personal. Sorry, but it is personal.

National Review institutionally believes that what Cheney's family is doing is evil. Some have the integrity to keep saying so even when their actual impact on an actual human being they actually care about is at stake. Lopez, Podhoretz and Goldberg do not have that much integrity. Remember: David Frum once threatened to make Mary Cheney a criminal for her committed relationship of a decade and a half. Remember also: these people wanted to declare this family illegitimate in the very Constitution of the United States, declaring that one group of Americans do not belong in their own country.

And now they find themselves demonizing and marginalizing and discriminating against one of their own. Stupid poetic justice, as Homer Simpson would say.

So what do they do? They are forced to be silent, or to blame others for bringing it up. Their double standards and intellectual dishonesty are now up there in neon lights. Where is Stanley "Slippery Slope" Kurtz? Cat got your tongue? Thousands of words to demonize abstract others. Sudden silence when he has to cast out one of his own. These people do not even have the courage of their own prejudices.

As for Mary Cheney not seeking to make this a political issue, that is not true. In her book, Cheney quite clearly takes a stand. She opposes the federal constitutional amendment; and she opposes the amendment because it removes the woman she loves and is mothering a child with from the realm of legality, decency and humanity. Kathryn-Jean Lopez has spent the past several years directly attacking the Cheney family. She just doesn't have the integrity to continue the attack when its real nature is fully revealed.

Copyright © 2006 Time Inc.

[TessUnsonia]

As cruel as it sounds and regardless of the beating I'll take, I'll go one further and hope this pregnancy puts Mary Cheney's very life at risk. Let them be at the center of the debate over reproductive rights as well.

[Kitdowstyhodo]

You always surprise me, BR ^^^

That would create a very interesting political situation, though ...

[Scukonaher]

Wouldn't ya know (I couldn't resist) ...

Thinking of what to get for Mary Cheney's baby shower?

culturekitchen.com

We've gone to town with the news of Mary Cheney's pregnancy.

We are so full of cheer we went ahead and created a whole cornucopia of baby shower gifts for the happy mom, her out-of-law wife and their baby to be.

[HartOvara]

This topic should really be called "Mary's Baby." Is there some way to get it changed?

But seriously, Mary Cheney, her partner, and her baby will have an infinitely easier time getting help and acceptance than most gay parents. Money, connections and status go a long way.

[finasteridonline]

The issue goes beyond Mary Cheney and her circumstances. Possibly her situation will be a lightning rod that will force some changes.

Here is someone who apparently won't be giving Mary, Heather and their new family such an easy time ...

Mary Cheney Cruel to Children

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/423241702.html

Dr. Paul Cameron, Chairman
Family Research Institute

COLORADO SPRINGS, Dec. 8 -- Mary Cheney, the Vice President's unmarried daughter, is expecting. Dr. Paul Cameron, Chairman of the Family Research Institute, a Colorado Springs think-tank, condemned her decision:

"Unmarried women should not deliberately have children. Their children are more apt to experience privation and disruption. Consequently, such children are more apt to do poorly in school, disrupt society (e.g., engage in criminality), and be personally troubled. These wrongs are compounded when the child is brought into a homosexual setting."

By this selfish action, Cheney is not merely disrupting society, she is being cruel to her child:
Mary, 37, is currently 'partnered' with Heather Poe, 45. The median age of death for lesbians is around the late 50's. If Poe and Cheney stay together, odds are this child will lose at least one caretaker before graduating high school.Children of homosexuals testify that day-to-day living is more difficult – and they are more apt to report personal disturbance as a consequence.A high proportion of lesbian 'partnerings' break apart -- with custody issues haunting the child for the rest of his life.The child will disproportionately associate with homosexuals – who are as a class considerably more apt to have STDs and a criminal history, be interested in sex with children, involved in substance abuse, etc.The child will have a much higher probability of learning homosexual tastes (at least a third of lesbian's children adopt homosexuality)."Her pregnancy is further evidence that participation in homosexual activity distorts value systems, inducing practitioners to harm the commonweal. Our society already has too many children born without the benefits of marriage; Cheney's action is not only a bad example, but poor treatment of an innocent child."

(C) Christian Communication Network

[Pszinygv]

The median age of death for lesbians is around the late 50's. If Poe and Cheney stay together, odds are this child will lose at least one caretaker before graduating high school. Um, where did he get this number, and does it have anything to do, whatsoever, with the actual situation?

A high proportion of lesbian 'partnerings' break apart -- with custody issues haunting the child for the rest of his life. Notice the evasion of any reference to the number of hetero breakups.

homosexuals – who are as a class considerably more apt to have STDs and a criminal history, be interested in sex with children, involved in substance abuse And what? Are terrorists too?

These guys are full of it.

Chances are "Dr." Paul is supressing some of his own feelings and is associating so many evils with homosexuality to make it easier for him to "resist" it.

[NikitahDE]

I suspect it's a faith-based statistic.

[Verger99]

^ Hysterical, ryan - that might be the one-liner of the year for me

[rushiddink]

The median age of death for lesbians is around the late 50's. The ancient Greeks collected data on the women living on the Isle of Lebos (below). Indeed, the inhabitants' median age of death was their late 50s.





"It must have been the drinking water."

[QqJamxqP]

Vice President and Mrs. Cheney show off their sixth grandchild,
born yesterday morning [5/23/07] in D.C. (Courtesy White House)



Baby Cheney, Weighed on Political Scale, Too

By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts
The Washington Post
Thursday, May 24, 2007; C01

Mary Cheney gave birth yesterday to perhaps the most anticipated baby in contemporary U.S. politics -- her first child, Samuel David Cheney, whom she will raise with her longtime partner, Heather Poe.

The 8-pound 6-ounce boy is the sixth grandchild for Dick Cheney. The vice president and his wife, Lynne, both beaming, posed for a photo with him just hours after his 9:46 a.m. birth at Washington's Sibley Hospital.

And that, it seems, will be that for now in terms of public comment from the family about the baby, who launched a lively debate when Cheney, 38, first discussed her pregnancy in December.

Some gay activists have chastised the AOL executive for not being a stronger advocate for same-sex marriage, while some social conservatives have decried the trend of gay couples raising children. But the Cheneys have avoided stepping into a debate about the debate. The veep became testy when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him about it in a January interview.

At an N.Y.C. forum sponsored by Glamour magazine last winter, Mary Cheney responded to questions, saying: "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 by people on either side of an issue. It is my child." But she also went on to declare that "every piece of remotely responsible research" had demonstrated "no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents."

Cheney and Poe, a former park ranger, have been together for 15 years and live in Great Falls. And no, there's no more word on how the pregnancy came about.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...052400071.html

[ElenaEvgeevnaa]

That's very funny. I notice that the Cheney's bypassed the "family photo." One would think they adopted a newborn from this shot. I guess Lynn "C.U.Next.Tuesday." Cheney would find a picture of she and Dick with Mary with her muff girl "cheap and tawdry."

[Finkevannon]

Dear Dad:

I have watched you from the distance for quite awhile, and now I feel that I am in the position to give you advice.

That was a good start, but you need to supply the press with a family photo.

Invite our entire extended family to one of your mansions for a reunion.

Herd together everybody for a single photograph. With so many people gathered 'round, the small bundle will hardly be noticeable.

Offer each embarrassing family member who unexpectedly appears at the reunion one hundred billion dollars to keep quiet.

Yours truly,

Your Long-Lost, Sunni-Marxist, Out-of-Wedlock Daughter-turned-Son,
Richard Cheney II

[eEwbYjOH]

Dear Dad:

... Invite our entire extended family to one of your mansions for a reunion.

Could be a big gathering, especially if it includes Dick's "family" at Halliburton / Kellogg Brown & Root / various members of the Saudi Royal Family / the "unknowns" listed on the Veeps' mysterious "Visitor's Log"