Although Mary Cheney has been busy promoting her new book, “Now It’s My Turn,” you get the sense she doesn’t particularly relish all the attention.
Then again, when you’re the vice president’s daughter and gay, well, you don’t always have a choice.
Mary Cheney’s Colorado roots are deep. She – as well as mother Lynne and sister Elizabeth – graduated from Colorado College. She earned her MBA from the University of Denver and worked for the Rockies, where she did everything from “balloon launches and cannon salutes to opening days and parades.”
Cheney also toiled as a liaison to the gay and lesbian community for Coors. And lest we forget that company’s image a couple years back, this was certainly a colossal task.
And though Cheney’s taken a position as the chief of staff to Ted Leonsis, the vice chairman of AOL, in northern Virginia, her affection for the West has not diminished.
“I decided to spend a few years back East after living in Wyoming and Colorado. But the West will always be home,” Cheney tells me. “One thing I always liked about Colorado – you get a lot more people who view you as an individual instead of putting you in demographic definitions.”
Well, perhaps she hasn’t been back to Colorado in a while.
This state is home to both Sen. Wayne Allard and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, leading advocates for cluttering the Constitution with their own moral preferences.
Colorado also has four initiatives on the question of domestic partnerships and gay marriage working their way to the voters.
“It’s one of those things,” she says, not especially surprised at the level of activity. “This is an issue that has a lot of emotion behind it. It’s obviously important to Colorado voters.”
Naturally, a critical question arises: How could Cheney have worked for President Bush’s re-election campaign when he opposed marriage rights for gay couples? And how does she reconcile the fact that her political party actively crusades to deny her the basic dignity of marriage?
In her book, Cheney admits that she didn’t know that President Bush would endorse a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, “but his doing so didn’t change the fact that I made a commitment and more important, that I strongly believed in my father.”
Just as her father once stated, Cheney maintains that “freedom means freedom for everyone.” Still, Cheney says she was “pretty close” to quitting but stayed with Bush-Cheney ’04 for a number of reasons: “One of the big ones was that we live in the world of terrorists that will stop at nothing. In such a world, you simply don’t have a luxury of being a single-issue voter.”
Predictably, the woman can’t win for losing. Cheney has been attacked from all sides of the political spectrum.
Her lesbianism was brought to the public in petty and calculated political stunts by both John Edwards (whom she calls “total slime”) and John Kerry. She also writes that people on the far right “paraded around with signs calling me the Bride of Satan.” The moralist Alan Keyes called Cheney a “selfish hedonist” (aren’t all hedonists selfish?) while some left-wing sites called her a “Nazi sellout.”
I have no special insight into Mary Cheney’s personal life, and after reading her emotionally restrained book, I’m sure that’s exactly how she wants to keep it. Yet, the last two words that come to mind when speaking to Cheney are hedonist or Nazi.
Frankly, she displays a refreshingly independent streak and a thoughtful dignity we could use a lot more of from politicians and leaders.
Then again, stereotypes are one of the reasons Cheney wrote “Now It’s My Turn.” In particular, she wanted to clear up misconceptions about her father.
To sum it up: “He’s not Darth Vader.”
And whatever your opinion of the vice president may be, a guy who helps rear a daughter like Mary can’t be all bad.
David Harsanyi’s column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
