The Cheney Tiff

I cringed once again when Kerry brought up Mary Cheney in the debate. He could easily have made the same point without bringing up that particular example.

So I can think of two reasons why he would have brought her up.

• Some say that it's a back-handed compliment aimed at pointing out some sort of hypocrisy on the part of the Bush Administration for being against gay marriage while having a prominent gay in their midst.
• The other reason, which I'd like to find to be the more probable one, would be that he was trying to diffuse any advantage Bush/Cheney might have on the issue because the Cheneys do have a family member that is gay who they love and embrace -- which might give them more legitimacy on the issue. Perhaps the back-patting was genuine.

Speaking toward the second possible reason first, it must be hard for the Democrats to bring up the "gay bashing" image they love to project on the Republican Party when the Vice President has a gay daughter he loves and embraces. I think the Democrats don't quite know what to do about it so they are trying to appear gracious -- it's the safest thing for them to do.

So while I think it was in the end inappropriate, (one's sexuality is personal) especially if the flag was raised by the Cheneys after the VP debate, I'm not so sure it was ill-intended.

I'm not going to pretend I understand the emotions that caused the Cheneys' tempers to flare, but a simple "I'm sorry if I offended anyone, I certainly didn't mean to" from the Democrats
would probably be the proper response.

Mrs. Edwards' response to the flash of anger on the part of the Cheneys, however, stinks to high heaven.

"She's overreacted to this and treated it as if it's shameful to have this discussion. I think that's a very sad state of affairs. ... I think that it indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences. ... "

Shows a classless and condescending attitude toward the Cheneys.

The Left is so busy self-righteously bashing Christians' self-righeousness that they can't see their own. Their attitude toward the populace is "we, the enlightened and educated will tell you how to think", and "we will take care of you".

Which is the basic difference between the country they want and the country I want. I want a country where I'm free to take care of myself and believe what I want to believe. They want me to believe what they want me to believe, and they want to use the coercive power of the government to do it. It's the very reason we have the separation of church and state -- so the government is not promoting or hindering any deeply held ideologies on the entire populace.

I've said, I'm for gay unions, but I don't want it legislated that I have to call it marriage, and to me, that's what this is about. Recognize gay unions, give gay couples rights to health-care benefits and visitation rights. Just don't force a language change on the country because YOU think that's what I should have to call it. We can bestow rights on people in different situations without re-defining what we call one of them.

As a Libertarian, I'm against a lot of federal controls, and actually agree that ideally it should be left to the states -- however, I understand Bush's point on activist judges passing law from the bench and bypassing Congressional representation. That's not the way it's supposed to work, and it works more and more like that as years go by. Something needs to be done about that.

Judges need to rule that they can't legislate, only interpret laws that the legislature passes.