Breaking her silence (Gay)Mary Cheney denounces anti-gay amendment, but critics say it’s too little too late

FEATURE/PROFILES
Breaking her silence (Gay)Mary Cheney denounces anti-gay amendment, but critics say it’s too little too late
By KATHERINE VOLIN Thursday, May 11, 2006
Mary Cheney broke her long record of silence on gay issues this week with a PR blitz that would make Tom Cruise proud.
After years of criticism from activists who said Vice President Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter should have lobbied publicly for gay rights instead of working for the Bush-Cheney campaigns, the woman who once preferred to fly under the radar was suddenly everywhere, from "Primetime Live" to "Larry King" to the Washington Post. It was an unlikely week in the spotlight for a woman normally found behind the scenes.
During her father’s tenure in office, Mary Cheney has resisted sharing her opinions on gay marriage, gay adoption or other gay issues, even as her father’s boss spoke out against gay civil rights.
"She has been put in a unique place to make more difference than all of us can make combined," gay activist John Aravosis told the Blade in 2004. "With power comes responsibility."
Tired of what he saw as Mary Cheney’s irresponsibility, Aravosis launched a website, DearMary.com, in February of 2004 that challenged Cheney on her silence regarding Bush’s call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
At the time, Cheney was serving as the re-election campaign director for her father. The site generated thousands of letters to Cheney asking for her to speak out against the anti-gay rhetoric of the Bush campaign. Characteristically, Cheney issued no response.
IN A REVERSAL of that silence, Cheney, 37, has written a book titled, "Now It’s My Turn: A Daughter’s Chronicle of Political Life," that was published on May 9 by Threshold Editions whose editor in chief is Mary Matalin, a noted gay-friendly Republican politico and Cheney adviser. Matalin did not respond to a request for comment about the book. Cheney reportedly received a $1 million advance for her story.
The book focuses primarily on Mary Cheney’s political experiences, but includes her story of coming out to her parents and the revelation that President Bush once offered her the chance to issue a public statement in response to the administration’s amendment effort. She declined the opportunity.
When she appeared on ABC’s "Primetime Live" on May 4, Cheney said she was conflicted about maintaining her position on the 2004 campaign and decided not to attend the State of the Union address in which President Bush called for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
"I didn’t want to be there," Cheney told Diane Sawyer. "No one banned me from being there, but I didn’t want to stand up and cheer."
Cheney also said that most of her disagreements over the political stances of her father and President Bush were held in private.
"The president knows that I disagree with him," Cheney said. "Can you be too respectful of the leader of the free world? Can you be too respectful of the president of the United States?" she said later when Sawyer questioned whether she held back too much.
REACTION TO MARY Cheney’s decision to come out publicly with her views on gay marriage were mixed.
"It’s extremely disappointing that she did not use the opportunity that the president gave her … to make a statement against the administration’s policy on same-sex marriage and the marriage amendment," says Pam Spaulding, a lesbian activist who writes a political blog at www.pamspaulding.com. "That is the one thing you walk away from that confirms her cowardice."
Spaulding says that Cheney’s missed opportunity to speak out against the constitutional amendment may have cost gays and lesbians marriage rights at the state level.
"How many lives could have been changed for ordinary gays and lesbians if she would have said something during the campaign," Spaulding says. "From the time she was working on her father’s campaign until now, how many marriage amendments were on the ballot? She chose silence."
Candice Gingrich, senior youth outreach manager for the Human Rights Campaign and the lesbian half-sister of former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, took a very different path when her brother was in office than the one chosen by Mary Cheney.
"I knew if there was this opportunity to talk about issues that I cared deeply about and have people listen, that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hadn’t taken that opportunity," Gingrich says.
She added that she didn’t believe sharing her opinion publicly was disrespectful to her half brother.
"I couldn’t believe that he would ever begrudge me for taking a stance in what I believed in, even if it was completely opposite of what he said," Gingrich says.
Although Gingrich made very different choices than Mary Cheney, she says that Cheney needed to speak out in her own time.
"I’m grateful that she’s speaking out now," Gingrich says. "I know that she feels very strongly about the marriage issue and having a voice like hers now a month out before the Senate debate on the marriage amendment is important."
PATRICK GUERRIERO, PRESIDENT of gay political group the Log Cabin Republicans, agrees that Cheney’s timing shows a critical shift in conservative thinking on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
"I think we’re seeing a growing sentiment that there are a lot of good Republicans, good conservatives, who think we should not be playing politics with the American Constitution," Guerriero says.
Guerriero also says the "Primetime Live" interview showed that Cheney’s decision not to share her political viewpoints was a difficult choice for her.
"A lot of folks were quite harsh and scrutinized Mary Cheney during that whole period and I think many of us were unaware of the kind of conversations she had and her reflections on leaving the campaign and it showed someone who was trying to find a balance between family and politics and personal integrity," Guerriero says.
DURING HER "PRIMETIME LIVE" interview, Cheney said that it was hard for her to see her father take positions with which she disagreed. "Dinnertime can always be an adventure at the Cheney house," she said. "But those are always private discussions."
Kenji Yoshinio, a gay law professor at Yale University, wrote a book on the sociological notion of "covering," which occurs when one "downplays a stigmatized identity to help other people ignore it." In the preface of his book, "Covering: the Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights," he mentions Cheney as someone who downplayed her sexual orientation.
"My intuition is that she may be covering," Yoshino says, noting that Cheney is often shown without her partner, Heather Poe, at public events. "There’s a particular pressure for people in the public eye to background the negative aspects of their identity and foreground the positive aspects."
Gingrich agrees that the pressure can be intense.
"I think that what we saw with the ‘Where’s Mary?’ campaign is there’s sometimes more pressure put on the queer relatives," Gingrich says.

Mary Cheney timeline
1969: Mary Cheney is born.
1991: Graduates from Colorado College.
1993: Works in promotions for the Colorado Rockies baseball team
.2000: Leaves Coors, where she worked as a liaison to the gay and lesbian community to repair the rift between gays and the brewery, to work on her father’s campaign.
2002: Earns a graduate business degree from the University of Denver and serves on the advisory board of the Republican Unity Coalition.
July 2003: Becomes director of vice presidential operations for the Bush-Cheney
2004 presidential re-election campaign.
Feb. 2004: DearMary.com, a website that featured Mary Cheney’s face on a milk carton with the slogan "Where’s Mary," is launched.Aug.
2004: Alan Keyes calls Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist."
Oct. 2004: John Kerry and John Edwards both mention Mary Cheney’s sexual orientation in the presidential and vice-presidential debates. Lynne Cheney admonishes them later in a speech, and Bush’s polls spike in what was termed the "Mary Cheney bounce."Nov. 2004: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are elected to a second term.
May 2006: Mary Cheney appears on "Primetime Live" to promote her new book: "Now It’s My Turn: A Daughter’s Chronicle of Political Life."
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Oh, Mary, my dear, why were you born to a republican mother and father? God truly does have a weird sense of humor, doesn't he?