Burnt Orange Report

Does Cheney Support his Daughter or his boss?

By Byron LaMasters

Or does he just flip flop?

He couldn't seem to make up his mind today:

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 said. "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.

[...]

Last month, Lynne Cheney said states should have the final say over the legal status of personal relationships, a comment that came just days before the Senate failed to back the ban.

Cheney said the amendment did not have the votes to pass, but he also said the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which President Clinton signed into law in 1996, may be enough.

"Most states have addressed this and there is on the books the federal statute, the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, and to date, it has not been successfully challenged in the courts and may be sufficient to resolve the issue," the vice president said.

[...]

During the 2000 campaign, vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney took the position that states should decide legal issues about personal relationships and that people should be free to enter relationships of their choosing.

Addressing Bush's position on the amendment, Cheney said, "at this point, save my own preference, as I have stated, but the president makes policy for the administration. He's made it clear that he does, in fact, support a constitutional amendment on this issue."

Why won't Dick Cheney just say point blank, "I disagree with the President on this issue, but he makes the decisions for this administration, so his position is our policy"? Ok, well Bush doesn't really make the decisions, but that's beside the point. He didn't say that, so all the modifying rhetoric is meaningless. Dick Cheney has constantly refused to back up his support that he expressed for states rights on the marriage equality in which he expressed in the 2000 Vice Presidential debate. "Freedom" doesn't mean "freedom for everyone" when he remains silent when his boss wants to write into the constitution of the United State an amendment saying that his daughter's family is of lesser value than the families that President Bush's daughter's might choose to have. Dick Cheney can't have it both ways.

Posted by Byron LaMasters at August 24, 2004 04:35 PM | TrackBack