Marygate

I am trying to decipher the lunacy surrounding "Marygate". No, I don't mean the attitude-y queen who works the door at many large NYC gay clubs, but rather the non-controversy surrounding Kerry's reference to Dick Cheney's lesbian off-spring, Mary. It all started with a question at the last presidential debate "Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?". Kind of a weird question, since THAT was an issue a decade or two ago. The issue at hand NOW is gay marriage, so why not ask what the candidates about that? Anyway Bush's simple answer was "I don't know". (Unfortunately, "I don't know" would also have to be Bush's answer to "How do you spell Iraq?" and "What is 2 + 2?" and "Is Cheney human?")

But Kerry made an example of Cheney's lesbian daughter Mary, saying he felt she's being "who she was born as". Then the controversy began. Having lost all 3 debates and seeing the gap in the polls between the 2 candidates closing, the republicans began a desperate, senseless (though inexplicably effective) spin to distract voters from Kerry's more solid vision for the nation. Lynne Cheney lashed out against Kerry with "this is not a good man" and republicans cried foul because Mary was a "private person", even though she works for her father's very public campaign! Kerry then issued a typically mealy-mouthed statement to patch things up. At least some newscasters brought up the fact that in the vp debate, Cheney had thanked John Edwards after the senator mentioned the fact that Mary was gay, so this should NOT be creating fireworks now.

But what really makes Mary Cheney fair game for discussion is that just by existing, she clearly demonstrates the heartlessness of the republican position on gay marriage. While professing to love her, Cheney would deny his own flesh and blood the right to marry! Unfortunately, the core of the issue got lost, again, in the spin. And it's the republican's typical game of manufactured outrage over nothing to cloud the real issues. We've seen this when newscasters ask democrats (usually in a mildly shocked tone) questions like "Are you suggesting that President Bush would send American troops to their deaths needlessly in an unjustified war?". Well, what is worse, SUGGESTING that he sent them, or actually SENDING THEM??!!! Here's an example in drag terms: RuPaul tells me "Bitch! You stole my eyeliner!" and I answer "I can't believe you would accuse me of that, sista-gurl!" to shift the guilt to her for daring to accuse me---INSTEAD OF ANSWERING HER ACCUSATION with "I have my own eyeliner--and here it is as proof", "I don't wear your cheap brand, hooker!", or "Are you on crack again, beeyotch?", etc. And when it comes to gay marriage, make no mistake that the real issue is that Bush was so scared by the recent inroads towards legalizing gay unions in California, Massachusetts and New Paltz, NY , that he has proposed a constitutional amendment to ban it--a measure which even many of his fellow republicans denounced as extreme and unnecessary.

And speaking of unnecessary, for a giggle, please check out an excerpt of Lynne Cheney's hilariously schmaltzy, soft-porn novel SISTERS from 1981 (http://www.whitehouse.org/administration/sisters.asp) with a bi-sexual heroine. Here's a sample: "The young woman was heavily powdered, but quite attractive, a curvesome creature, rounded at bosom and cheek. When she smiled, even her teeth seemed puffed and rounded, like tiny ivory pillows." Yucch! Since when do dykes (or anyone else, for that matter) get turned on by puffy pillow-teeth? Elizabeth Edwards said in a radio address that Kerry's mention of Mary shouldn't be causing such outrage, unless the Cheneys were ashamed of their daughter's sexuality. This rotten book by Mary's mom suggests that perhaps they are ashamed of it's author's homosexual tendencies too. As well as her bestiality, cuz that Dick Cheney is a toad!