If and when I follow through with my decision to vote for George W. Bush in November, one moment from the barely watchable GOP Convention will actively trigger my gag reflex in the ballot box. When Vice President Dick Cheney finished his address he brought up on stage his wife, his daughter Elizabeth and her husband and children. It was clear what the intended message was, yet the message actually conveyed was markedly different. Mr. Cheney did not enjoy the company of one Mary Cheney, his openly gay daughter who was nowhere to be seen on stage at one of her father’s biggest moments. An uncharacteristically poignant Terry McAuliffe summed up the event, stating “(the GOP) can hide gay and lesbian family members at their convention, but Bush can’t hide his failed record from the American people. President Bush isn’t content with just dividing the country along political lines, now he’s dividing families, including the family of his vice president.”
Additionally, it must be noted that Mary was the only one of the Bush-Cheney brood not invited to speak at the convention. While one could imagine that the average daughter might be intimidated by the Bush twins’ towering intellect and pristine reputation for good judgment and thus excuse her from talking, Mary is no average daughter: she runs her father’s campaign operations. Apparently the RNC, or worse, Mary herself, thought that the image of Mr. Cheney with a gay person on stage, daughter or not, would not be harmonious with the administration’s determined, unflinching push towards a constitutional amendment that would, for the forseeable future, brand Mary and people like her as second-class citizens.
To his credit, Cheney has stated he disagrees with the proposed amendment and, on more than one occasion, has stated his support for his daughter’s freedom to choose the path that makes her most happy. That is not the issue. Neither is the wisdom, or lack thereof, of the amendment the issue here. What is important is the health of the Republican party. Whether the exclusion of Mary was forced upon Cheney or self-imposed, the fact remains that the convenient fiction of an all straight, all white, all married family unit was more comforting and palatable to convention goers and viewers than the reality of a family that loves and respects its own gay members. This is not condecending politics where the RNC miscalculated what it thought its members wanted to see. Rather this strongly resembles national opinion, especially that within the party.
There is little room for interpretation. This administration has spent crucial political capital tearing down what little hard-earned tolerance this already exposed and abused minority has accumulated, all for its own survival. The Republicans look, in the short term, to be the stronger of the two parties, yet this subversion of its pledge to respect states’ rights indicates all is far from well. Rather, the Republicans are a majority party desperately clinging to power by any means necessary, including utilizing divisive, discriminatory tactics so powerful that their own VP has to bow to retrograde pseudo-morality.
Bush has repeated ad-nauseam that he does not determine policy by looking to polls, and it seems clear that the amendment initiative has been made a priority not just because of its relative popularity, but also his own beliefs. However, a simple question seems appropriate: right now, of all the things going wrong in the world, what does it say about a president when one of his key domestic stances is destroying real families right before his eyes while he pushes forward without hesitation?