Mary Cheney defends same-sex parenthood
Vice president's lesbian daughter says baby not 'prop' (02-02) 04:00 PST New York -- Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, has for the first time publicly defended her decision to become pregnant and asserted that same-sex couples were equally capable of raising children as heterosexual couples.
"When Heather and I decided to have a baby, it wasn't going to be the most popular decision ever," Cheney said, referring to her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe.
She then gestured to her middle -- any bulge was disguised by a boxy jacket -- and asserted: "This is a baby. This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue. It is my child."
Cheney, 37, was speaking Wednesday at Barnard College in Manhattan in a panel discussion sponsored by Glamour magazine. The baby, whose sex she has not revealed publicly, is due this spring and will be the sixth grandchild for the vice president and his wife.
Cheney, who is vice president for consumer advocacy for AOL and lives in Virginia, has not said how she became pregnant.
Her father became testy last week during a CNN interview when the host, Wolf Blitzer, asked what he thought of conservatives -- specifically James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family -- who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy.
In refusing to answer, the vice president told his interviewer: "I think, frankly, you're out of line with that question."
Mary Cheney said in a brief interview after the panel discussion that she was not speaking for her father, but that when she saw the interview, she also felt Blitzer had crossed a line. "He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.
Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney whether she had anything to say to critics like Dobson.
He wrote in Time magazine in December that years of social research "indicates that children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father." He also wrote that his group believes that "birth and adoption are the purview of married heterosexual couples." Two of the researchers whom Dobson cited in his article have complained that Dobson distorted their views and said they disagreed with his conclusions.
Cheney agreed the research was distorted. "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents," she said. "What matters is that children are raised in a stable, loving environment."
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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/02/MNG0KNTHP11.DTLIf she believes that same-sex couples are equally capable of raising children as heterosexual couples and her father is supporting her and the impending child, he must believe that as well. Why doesn't he take on her conservative critics? Through his behavior he is essentially saying that gays and lesbians should have no equal/parental rights--except for his daughter and her lover. So much for standing on principle. 
