Mary Cheney Considered Quitting 2004 Campaign Over Gay Marriage Issue

ABC News ^ | May 3, 2006

[skandalon]

She says she considered quitting her role as campaign adviser over the issue of gay marriage, but Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter Mary Cheney tells ABC News "Primetime" anchor Diane Sawyer her sexuality has never created problems within her family.

Mary Cheney discussed the campaign, her feelings about President Bush, life with her partner of 14 years, and what it was like to come out as gay to her parents.

"I struggled with my decision to stay on the 2004 campaign," Cheney told "Primetime." Her personal challenge came when President Bush said the nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.

[Antoninus]

If the brains of gay men and lesbians show differences to straight men and women - that is data.

All kinds of mental illnesses cause differences in the brain. Some are genetic. Many are the result of environmental factors, trauma, or bad habits that the individual developed quite on their own. As such, this data by itself (if accurate) proves exactly the same as would similar data from the brains of people with PTSD.

[Torie]

That is a pretty good excoriation, as a prose matter. I like it. The words just jell. It reminds me of Cotton Mather. LOL.

[Antoninus]

As a society, we should mind our own business.

Exactly. I had no problem with the homos doing their thing in private. It became an issue for me when they started doing it in public and demanding everyone else join the conga line.

As a devout Catholic, I'd be wary of being lukewarm on this issue, sinky. Remember what Jesus said about the lukewarm?

[Antoninus]

Everyone has the right to sin if they choose to.

If you believe that your rights come from God, please prove to me how it makes any sense that there is a "right to sin."

If you believe that your rights come from the omnipotent state, I'll understand a little easier.

[Torie]

Does the First Amendment extend to those who are not heterosexual? Shouuld it be a public policy to punish them in other ways, when they choose to exercise it, to discourage the same?

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Do you live your life loving people and affirming them, or finding fault with what they do, and condemning them?

No human being has the power to condemn (unless it is a voting member of a jury in a capital trial). All people have the power to judge. The issue here is the lack of its exercise by deviant freaks...

[scripter]

I would suggest that it probably looks like junk science to you because it doesn't agree with your beliefs.

Indeed, saying something is junk science doesn't make it junk science. But I look at all the available evidence, and all the available evidence tells us this is junk science.

If the brains of gay men and lesbians show differences to straight men and women - that is data.

That's an "if" that has been previously debunked, and by homosexual scientist Simon LeVay:

"[His 1991 research] made the unassuming LeVay one of the most misunderstood men in America. "It's important to stress what I didn't find," he points out with the courtly patience of someone who long ago got used to waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. "I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men are 'born that way,' the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain --INAH3 is less likely to be the sole gay nucleus of the brain than part of a chain of nuclei engaged in men and women's sexual behavior. My work is just a hint in that direction--a spur, I hope, to future work."

Source: Interview with David Nimmons (March, 1994) "Sex and the Brain", Discover, Vol. 15, No. 3, p. 64-71.

Every study on a homosexual brain since LeVay's study has been debunked. The study you referenced came out today so give it a few days for others to look at the data. History tells us this study will be debunked and we can already see it's based on humans responding to pheromones... an assumption.

Others have particular agendas

Indeed they do.

[Sunsong]

If you believe that your rights come from God, please prove to me how it makes any sense that there is a "right to sin."

It's called free will. And unless you are claiming to be without sin - you have chosen to exercise that right(g).

[sinkspur]

Are homosexual relationships a good thing?

If they're based primarily on the sexual, physical relationship, no. But, heterosexual relationships based primarily on the sexual, physical, relationship are not good either.

See, my problem with your approach is this: if you begin by telling homosexuals that they're rotten because their relationships are rotten, you're not giving them any way out. They only know intimacy in a homosexual relationship.

To my way of thinking, you have to accept people where they are. It may not be where you are, or where you think they should be. But they're where they are, and you have to accept them. People change or move only when they feel like it's safe to do so.

You're not going to scare adults into change or into a safer relationship. Give them some room, accept them.

God is patient with all of us. The least we could do is be patient with each other.

[JCEccles]

Welcome to the judge's club. Each of you just did what you have been accusing and condemning the rest of us of doing: you judged homosexual behavior to be a bad thing and admitted that it is not to be celebrated or encouraged.

Good for you.

[Antoninus]

Do you live your life loving people and affirming them, or finding fault with what they do, and condemning them?

This really isn't a hard issue. When someone behaves well, their behavior should be affirmed and lauded. When someone behaves badly, they should be chastised and corrected. Both should be done with love, above all. Apparently, you think (in the best tradition of the "me" generation) that love involves affirming every behavior and making no distinction between the virtuous and the wicked. I couldn't disagree more.

[durasell]

I never claimed to not be a hypocrite. It's a glandular problem...honest.

[Antoninus]

You vomited a formless mass of lukewarm jello past your lips and called it an answer.

Post of the night!

[Torie]

LOL. You handled all of this better than I. I made the mistake of trying to be serious, where that was not merited. My bad.

[scripter]

As such, this data by itself (if accurate) proves exactly the same as would similar data from the brains of people with PTSD.

An excellent point. Another is that behavior causes differences in the brain, but for some reason some scientists apparently decided to forget what we already know to push some bogus causal agent for homosexuality.

[sinkspur]

As a devout Catholic, I'd be wary of being lukewarm on this issue, sinky. Remember what Jesus said about the lukewarm?

I do. He was speaking to the Pharisees, who were excited by His message, but would not affirm Him as the Son of God.

Jesus never judged sinners. He forgave them, and told them to sin no more, but He didn't yell or scream at them and call them perverts or anything (like some are doing here).

He reserved His gentleness for sinners, and His wrath for those who thought they had all the answers.

[durasell]

LOL. You handled all of this better than I. I made the mistake of trying to be serious, where that was not merited. My bad.



Judging somebody by their sexual orientation is moronic. Ya know, it's just one aspect of their life. It's much better to judge them solely by their looks.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Does the First Amendment extend to those who are not heterosexual? Shouuld it be a public policy to punish them in other ways, when they choose to exercise it, to discourage the same?

Does the First Amendment apply to a flasher on the street corner?

Does the First Amendment apply to ritual murder?

Does the First Amendment apply to arson?

Does the First Amendment apply to kiddie porn?

[sinkspur]

No human being has the power to condemn (unless it is a voting member of a jury in a capital trial). All people have the power to judge. The issue here is the lack of its exercise by deviant freaks...

You have all the answers you need, arranged in nice neat little stacks in your mind.

You're not going to listen to someone who might mess up all that orderliness.

[Antoninus]

Does the First Amendment extend to those who are not heterosexual?

It extends to them in exactly the same fashion it extends to NAMBLA or PETA or ELF or any other ideological group that espouses and promotes evil or foolish behavior. They should be laughed at/shouted down by the mass of society. If we can't muster the strength to do so, we'll certainly come to a bad end.

We are only fortunate in that we have countries like Holland, Sweden, and Canada who are acting as canaries in the mine-shaft.