Posted on 05/02/2006 1:10:54 PM PDT by meandog
New York, N.Y. – In her new memoir, NOW IT'S MY TURN(Simon & Schuster/Threshold Editions, 2006), Mary Cheney writes that when she told her parents she was gay, the first words out of her father’s mouth “were exactly the ones that I wanted to hear: ‘You’re my daughter, and I love you, and I just want you to be happy.’”
VANITY FAIR editor Todd Purdum reports that Mary Cheney tells her story in a voice very much like her father’s, and that she came out to her parents when she was a junior in high school, on a day when, after breaking up with her first girlfriend, she skipped school, ran a red light, and crashed the family car. Cheney writes that her mother hugged her, but then burst into tears, worried that she would face a life of pain and prejudice.
When Purdum asks the vice president whether he thinks gay people are born that way, Cheney scrunches up his mouth, fixes him with a look that says “Nice try,” then says: “I’m not going to get into that. Those are deeply personal questions. You can ask.”
Mary Cheney tells Purdum that her father “has very little tolerance for bullshit, pardon my French.” She also says that one common reaction from people who have read the manuscript of her book is “‘Wow, you guys really have this close-knit, loving family,’ and it always strikes me as ‘Yeah, of course we do.’ It was very surprising to me that people would think we didn’t.”
When Purdum asks Cheney if he is fatalistic about his heart disease, Cheney says, “I am. I don’t even think about it most of the time. You do those things a prudent man would do, and I live with it.” Asked what he would have for breakfast at Nora’s Fish Creek Inn, his favorite pre-fishing spot in Wilson, Wyoming, Cheney responds without missing a beat: “I’d probably have two eggs over easy, sausage and hash browns,” then hastens to add that that is not his normal breakfast. “The day I go fishing, I get off my diet,” he says.” At a roundtable lunch with reporters a couple of years ago, two who were present tell Purdum that Cheney cut his buffalo steak in bite-size pieces the moment it arrived, then proceeded to salt each side of each piece.
Cheney tells Purdum that he has not changed over the years, but perhaps many of his contemporaries think he has “because of my associations over the years, or because I came across as a reasonable guy, people have one view of me that was not necessarily an accurate reflection of my philosophy or my view of the world.”
Purdum asks Cheney if, during his “darkest night,” he has even “a little doubt” about the administration’s course. “No,” he tells Purdum. “I think we’ve done what needed to be done.” Of the debate over whether or not the administration hyped the pre-war intelligence, Cheney says, “In the end, you can argue about the quality of the intelligence and so forth, but ... I look at that whole spectrum of possibilities and options, and I think we did the right thing.”
Cheney rejects the caricature of him as the power behind the throne, insisting, “I think we have created a system that works for this president and for me, in terms of my ability to be able to contribute and participate in the process.” When Purdum says that the cartoon characterization of him must not be accurate, Cheney says, “My image might be better out there, this caricature you talk about might be avoided, if I spent more time as a public figure trying to improve my image, but that’s not why I’m here.”
Purdum reports that Cheney travels with a chemical-biological suit at all times. When he gave his friend Robin West and his twin children a ride to the White House a couple of years ago, West commented on the fact that Cheney’s motorcade varied its daily path. “And he said, ‘Yeah, we take different routes so that “The Jackal” can’t get me,’” West tells Purdum. “And then there was this big duffel bag in the middle of the backseat, and I said, ‘What’s that? It’s not very roomy in here.’ And [Cheney] said, ‘No, because it’s a chemical-biological suit,’ and he looked at it and said, ‘Robin, there’s only one. You lose.’”
Purdum talks with former New York Times reporter and former executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, James Naughton, who asks of Cheney: “Does he acknowledge that he is not as pleasant as he used to be?” Naughton knew Cheney as a fellow prankster during the 1976 campaign, and all but sighs in search of an explanation as to why he is so different now. “I guess I would like to believe,” he says, “without any evidence to support it, that coming very close to death has somehow compelled him to act as though he only has so much breath and so much life, that he’s only got so much time to accomplish what he has to do. But the public figure is nothing like the private one that I remember.”
Gerald Ford tells Purdum: “He may have changed a bit, but that was required for the change of circumstances.” Ford, who will turn 93 in July, adds, “Times change, and people change as a result of that.”
“If you’re looking for a change from one point to another, being vice president is sui generis,” Lynne Cheney tells Purdum. “It’s not quite like any other job.”
The June issue of Vanity Fair hits newsstands in New York and L.A. on May 3 and nationally on May 9.
I could be off base here, but I'm instinctively suspicious of those who try to aggressively benchmark sin in others against Bible passages. I usually interpret it as a tactic to disguise a greater sin in themselves...
Let me ask you a question:
If your child is running as fast as they can towards what you know to be a sheer cliff with a 500 foot dropoff, would it be 'unloving' to try and stop them?
then something is seriously wrong with dad....
-imo
I don't think dad was fine with it...on moral,or political grounds...
He seems to have found a way to live with it...without turning his back on his child...
If my daughter were in to any kind of deviant lifestyle (sex drugs crime homosexuality satan worship) and committed to it...I guess I would tell her that although I love her.. she needed to go far away and live her life somewhere where I did not have to witness it daily...
One can be concerned about a their child's morality without being openly judgemental. I am sure that "whatever makes you happy" was not the only words father Cheney said to daughter Mary. However, the difference between Cheney and Keyes, is that both father and daughter had the class not to make this a public debate, feeding the "beat them over the head with a bible" group of faux-Christians.
Children are only ours to form and nurture while they are children. Once they are adults and responsible for their own actions, we can approve or disapprove, but we must treat them like adults. Publicly stating that you don't approve of your daughter's lifestyle is a disrespectful way to treat another adult. Publicly stating that you don't approve of someone else's child is a slippery slope most Christians in public life shouldn't stand on.
Dick was probably fine when Mary came out of the closet
Because it was not a surprise to him....he was most likely at least somewhat prepared for such an eventuality...
I don't understand why Mary Cheney wanted to write a book about her homosexuality in the first place.
You're missing the point entirely. The real issue here is whether the daughter's girlfriend is hot.
He sounds like a father who loves his daughter, regardless of the choices she makes in her life.
There is no Freudian hidden meaning...pure nonsense...I'm simply remarking about the affront to God...that homosexuality is a the carnal corruption of God's creation and the union of man and woman, but it seems that since you can't, nor could Ann, explain how blanket, undefined "compassion" justifies corruption and deception or simply that homosexuality, unapologetically practiced as a way of life (a sexxual perversion as a way of life) is something completely pardonable or acceptable. I detect that the "compassion" crowd talks a lot about it, but they do so in isolation forgetting repeated warnings of eternal damnation and hell fire.
No. But your analogy is faulty.
When life is all about you, that's what you'd say.
As a Bible-believing Christian, I'd have to say you're right.
My analogy falls far short.
Falling off a cliff is nowhere near as bad as living forever apart from God.
How do they react to conditonal love from a parent?
I'm not particularly compassionate. I do believe all that "he who is without sin, etc. etc." stuff. So, I try not to throw stones and allow folks to live their own lives as best they can.
You're quite rejecting Christianity...for the religion of humanism. Homosexuality is sin...its worth noting, especially when its being displayed quite publicly in a tell all book by the Vice President's daughter. What is disrespectful...pointing out immoral behavior or immoral behavior. We don't need you treating Christians like dummies..
...The problem is that statement has nothing to do with the morality or immorality of homosexuality
And your statement doesen't address what VP Cheney should do about his daughter. Immoral or not, theyre not going to throw her out in the street.
Cripes, I think adultery is just as bad but look around you sometime...its everywhere. You cant disown the whole world, sometimes all you can do is just frown at them.
"So the Bible says you should love one sinner, but not two?"
Somewhere along the line there is an endorsement or acceptance of the sin, which is not OK.
Just to take it out of the heated context, let's use premarital sex (pretty much the same verses in the Bible).
Son brings serious college girlfriend -- or even fiance --- home for Christmas. They want to sleep in the same bed. No brainer using the Bible to say "no." They're not married. Period. Paragraph.
Now son brings boyfriend home. They've even been "married" in MA. They want to sleep in the same bed. It's still a no brainer in the Bible to say "no." Whatever MA may say, the Bible is clear. That's not marriage.
Variations and iterations ensue, but it goes back to text alluded to in my tagline. After saving the adulteress from the rock-throwers, Jesus said, "Now, go and sin no more."
People forget that second part.
OH, well, I didn't know you were going to quote the Bible. That makes all the difference. /s
" Do I need to point out how the New Testament, the very words of Christ, repeatedly warn of hell fire??"
Please don't - but perhaps you could go read the passages yourself. Then look in the mirror and say the name "dyke" outloud. You will be seeing what God sees - hearing what he hears. Do you like it? God doesn't like words spoken with hate- do you?
You have never once mentioned love in any post you've put up. That's telling, to me.
I hope you have no offspring, as you will use love as a carrot and a stick, instead of as a constant in their lives that they can always count on.
Why should the Cheneys have any shame or disgust? You have enough to sit in judgement of the whole wide world?
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