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.
Or are queers a "special kind" of enemy?
Believers repent and stop the behaviour, any sinful behaviour. That does not indicate perfection but a wilingness to try to live according to Gods Word.
Really EV?
I guess he threw her out because she's a lesbian AND she does not adhere to his politics.
Imagine that...he throws away a daughter because they differ in political thoughts.
I don't like Alan Keyes' definition of freedom or fatherhood.
Her belief about the rightness and wrongness of homosexuality was fixed by the government. Seriously. Several sources. By the time my sister found out it was too late.
The apostle Paul puts it this way: "For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit"
You gave nothing regarding the matter. You claimed you could produce something in God's own words. Point out, in God's own words, what will get you damned.
Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.
- Saint Augustine
But it made you look.
That only took 240 posts but I'm glad it was finally said.
You mean aside from the fact that she's promoting a book she hopes to sell?
It applies to her too.
/tiphat
And your criteria for determinimg what is and is not God's word is....?????
He gave them explicitly, the words are complete, in that they cover all matters whatsoever.
Yes, Romans chapter 1 IS explicit.
For the record, I agree- you love your children no matter what.
Does God reject people who have yet to repent sin? No, he still loves us all. He is there, every moment, loving us and ready to forgive us.
If I reject my child and cast him out of my home, I lose all opportunity to show my great love and hope for him.
Since these rock-throwers seem to be fumbling with their Bibles, let me.
Jesus, in Matthew 25, beginning with verse 31, puts it very succinctly: those who did not feed, clothe, visit, or treat well those who were the least of His brethren, did not treat Him well either. They were the goats, and they would depart into eternal fire.
So, you can be pure as the driven snow in sexual matters, but if you condemn your brothers or sisters you're in deep trouble.
It's funny. I have lesbian friends who also say it is a choice. But the lesbians who say they were born that way come back with, 'why would anyone *choose* to be gay in an intolerant society?' I kinda laugh at that kind of reasoning.
But people in our midst have freedom. And I for one have zero disapproval of someone for being a homosexual or their behavior if reasonable. I have all sorts of opinions against what some call "gay rights" -- changing the definition of marriage, for example.
"[T]hose shameful acts against nature, such as were committed in Sodom, ought everywhere and always to be detested and punished. If all nations were to do such things, they would be held guilty of the same crime by the law of God, which has not made men so that they should use one another in this way."(St. Augustine of Hippo, 'Confessions', Book III, Chapter 8, 15.)
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