Mary Cheney, who was largely defended by the LGBT community when the wingnuts descended on her and partner Heather Poe when they announced that they were having a baby (see here, here and here), seems incapable of shaking any loyalty to her homophobic GOP. Raw Story reports that the daughter of Darth gave $1000 to the campaign of former Rep. Rob Portman (R), who is seeking the see of retiring U.S. Senator George Voinovich (R-OH).
Cheney’s donation is remarkable considering her public comments on same-sex marriage and gay adoption. In 2004, she reportedly considered quitting her father’s re-election campaign after President Bush endorsed a federal marriage banning gay marriage. In 2007, she rebuked televangelist James Dobson for comments criticizing gay couples’ adoption.
SOB Portman voted for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage as well as a ban on adoption of children by same sex couples in DC while serving in the House.
Portman’s opposition to same-sex marriage is particularly salient, because both of his potential Democratic challengers favor its legalization. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner reaffirmed her backing for gay marriage in a posting at The Huffington Post in June, and a spokesman for Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher announced that he’d reversed his opposition the same month.Robert Paduchik, Portman’s campaign manager, told the Columbus Dispatch in June that the erstwhile congressman still opposes same-sex marriage.
“Rob Portman has always believed that marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman,” Paduchik said.
So Mary, why is Portman deserving of a Senate seat? Is it just pocketbook issues for you? I hate to break it to you, but most LGBT citizens out there cannot afford to buy their way out of living under institutionalized discrimination because of Daddy’s Buxx. When are you going to think beyond your comfortable existence? I have no problem donating to a pro-equality Republican, but how hard is it to just stop the cash-flow toward open oppressors and bigots?




31 Comments


What’s the big surprise?Please rmember that Mary Cheney began her “career” (such as it is) by working as a shill for Coors — trying to win back the gay and lesbian customers the homophobic brewers (of piss-poor beer) lost in ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL POLITICAL BOYCOTTS THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER KNOWN AND DON’T YOU EVER FORGET IT!
Mary’s attitude towards the LGBT community is crystal clear: “I’ve Got mine — Fuck You!”
She’s a HackA chip off the old block who can’t see past the end of her own nose.
oithis information, like the Michael Jackson Episode, should be regarded as a referendum on FATHERS.
Vile, Self-Hating, WitchI loathe Mary Cheney as much as I loathe her high-profile, daddy-defending sis, Liz Cheney.
You know, the Cheney clan is totally fucked up. I pity the kid Mary had with her girlfriend. I don’t care how much coin he will inherit. Being born into that family is going to guarantee a life in therapy.
self loathing, It’s not just for Republican gay men
David’s an endangered species…
someone who actually knows some LGBT history.
How to solve a problem like Maria? I’m convinced she would still be buried DEEP in the “public closet” if being identified as a Lesby Anne wasn’t a prerequisite for her Coors job.
The last line of this video is unacceptable but it’s 99% a hoot!
Let’s Repeat The Old Gay Republican MantraAny time a gay Republican votes for or donates to a gay-hating Republican, it always comes with this canned justification: Hey, I’m not some narrow-minded single-issue voter. There are things that are more important to me than security of employment, being able to visit my spouse in the hospital, or continued custody of my children. Things like tax cuts for the wealthy, wars of aggression, and eviscerated consumer and environmental protections.
At any rate, this is an awfully public and expensive way of telling your partner that she should have no legal right to the child she’s helping to raise.
Michael, you need to rail on that some moreand more and more about gays not knowing their history…I actually know a little bit and I am devouring gay history now because…well it’s necessary.
I just really have nothing to say about Mary Cheney other than “well fuck you too, Miss Thing.”
I always wonder what Heather thinks of this cr*p?It’d be hideous enough to ever even have to meet Lynn and Dick Cheney, let alone have you kid related to them, or appear at conventions with them, and Bush. But to have more crud to deal with Republican haters, after that administration is over, seems cruel and unusual punishment.
With Liz flexing her political chops Mary and Heather will be dragged into that mess too…..BLEEECH!
see, now a vote for Illinois Republican Mark KirkI could understand. He’s has a 75 rating with the HRC.
But this…
Is Mary Cheney from Ohio?I’m not sure why it should matter, but I’d be a wee bit sympathetic (although not really) if this was a case of Cheney looking out for pocketbook issues (non-lesbian ones) in her home state. Donating money to a random conservative Senate candidate who opposes the rights of non-Cheney lesbians to have children? Oi.
She seems to have been at least partially successful –A number of straight hipsters seem to think it’s hilarious to walk into a gay bar and ask for a Coors (and then complain about “bad service” when they don’t get it).
I know a fewaffluent gays that are fine with the way things are. They think they have enough money/power/prestige to insulate themselves from the real hate. Too bad they are selling out their less powerful brothers and sisters.
Why should that make a difference?I’m from Arizona but you’ll never see me shilling for McCain or Kyl. She could have found a candidate to donate to that was good for Ohio’s pocketbook without being rabidly anti-gay.
she can always leaveIt’s not like Mary is all that attractive anyway.
i wonder why her partner stays with herthis is clearly a woman who only cares about her own self-interests. she is the biological mother of her child, she is able to buy the protections she wants, is from a powerful family and has more political connections than she probably knows what to do with. on top of that, she has indicated time and again that she is not interested in the civil rights of others. what a catch, huh? if that relationship ever goes south, heather poe is totally screwed. she’ll be on the street and she’ll never see her child again. why anyone would subject themselves to that sort of heartbreaking risk–and to someone who is so pathologically uninterested in the well-being of others–is something i simply cannot fathom.
Good for you, Kev…I just typed out a suggestion list for people of about 20 books, by area, title, and author. Then hit the wrong key and lost it, so I’ll just rewrite a few among those I’ve read.
Best book on Stonewall riots: Stonewall by David Carter.
Best LGBT pioneers book: Before Stonewall by Burroughs.
Best timeline [until 1993]: Long Road to Freedom by editors of The Advocate.
Best post Stonewall history: Out for Good by Clendinen & Nagourney.
Best book about the only major federal fight over gay rights, DADT: Unfriendly Fire by Frank [plus David Mixner's autobiography Stranger Among Friends for the eyewitness perspective].
Best compendium of military bigotry: Conduct Unbecoming by Shilts [some MAJOR errors notwithstanding].
Shilt’s And the Band Played On captures much of the early AIDS nightmare and political criminal negligence if any one work can.
Any autobiography of gay historical figures is worthwhile if, by definition, subjective. Alas there’s no one-stop biography of Frank Kameny or Barbara Gittings, tho Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin do some autobio stuff in Lesbian Woman.
Because it’s about film, anyone should both read The Celluloid Closet AND watch the documentary with film clips made from it. NEVER underestimate the power of cultural imaging.
And, selfishly, the one I’m in, alas, is pretty poorly written and contains some quotes I thought off the record: Matlovich – The Good Soldier by Hippler.
Bottomline 1: The “constructionists” are arrogant fools.
Bottomline 2: Knowledge is power.
To that list I’d addStraight News by Edward Alwood
Intimate Companions by David Leddick
The Trouble With Harry Hay by Stuart Timmons
and
The Invention of Heterosexuality by Jonathan Ned Katz
It could be Dick’s moneyand he donated it in Mary’s name because he’d maxxed out his contributions under his own name.
Not that it matters, all Cheneys are scum.
With this donation did anyone think less of Mary?I was already maxed out on my distain of her long ago.
Oldie but goodie comment from “Bridget”
Bridget of Bleecker Street
Read Duberman’s Stonewalland Cures is on my list. Interesting that I had just finished reading “The Mayor of Castro Street” then to find a far superior portrait of Craig Rodwell in “Stonewall.”
One of the local gay thrift stores had quite a few older AIDS titles but I’m still recovering from Paul Monette’s “Borrowed Time”- i broke down in tears a few times while reading that (and I very, very, very rarely do that.) I did buy a copy of Monette’s “Last watch of the Night.”
It’s been almost 15 years since I read “Becoming a Man” so it’s probably good for a reread.
Up on deck now; Audre Lorde’s “Sister Outsider”, “Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities” by John D’Emillo (he does a column in one of the local fag rags) and Urvashi Vaid’s (yes I know she’s somewhat played out) “Virtual Equality”- which seemed like a good-if critical assessment of the gay civil rights movement in the 80′s and 90′s.
Is this the chick in the Milk Carton>Another self-loathing conservative lesbian:
http://utah.indymedia.org/uplo…
How republiCON of her!
A relative knows the Portmans(father more so than the candidate son), and neither Portman seems particularly religious or anti-gay. In private, the overly religious evangelicals would be regarded as Not Their Kind. These are Country Club Republicans (that’s where my relative has met them – they belong to the same club). These CCRs probably know enough wealthy gays/bisexuals on boards of this and that, especially not-for-profit arts organizations, that they have absolutely no “homophobia” – other than the fact that many or most of the arts-related A-bis/gays have been Jewish or European, and are fine for parties but not for the country club. The CCRs, including the Portmans, are Republican purely for the fiscal aspects.
Mary Cheney would feel quite at home.
phooey
Caveat Homo!
I second the Alwood suggestion. An extremely nice man I was acquainted with centuries ago.
BUT, despite the many “facts” Katz has unearthed, the INTERPRETATION that he CHOOSES to apply to most of them-that “homosexuality” has been “invented,” and never existed as we think of it today-is such head-up-his-ass sophomoric sophism that one is driven to fantasies of gathering him and all the other pompous “social constructionists” in one room and beating their heads in with, say, Rictor Norton’s My Dear Boy, Gay Love Letters through the Centuries or Mother Clap’s Molly House: The Gay Subculture in England, 1700-1830.
They posit that they are experts on the psychology of billions throughout the history of humankind-which would, of course, require them to possess two things: 1. an ability to read minds, and, 2., an energy-efficient time machine.
In fact, they are, at best, tedious linguists, who have raped our history in the name of applying Marxist theory to love and eros while cross-infecting each other with their 50-cent argot, unknown outside of Academia, like anal warts.
D’Emilio…
…writes fairly well on gay experience post 1920s but, last I heard, was still a terminal constructionist.
Nevertheless, I shall always treasure his Lost Prophet: Bayard Rustin despite what I’m convinced was too much a priori credibility attributed to nongay, white comments about Rustin’s time in federal prison.
Most-Recycled Book EVAHI wonder if the publisher of Mary’s book kept stats of how many copies of her book was returned for recycling? LOL
I remember shortly after it was released, I was seeing copies everywhere with the black marker line across the top of the pages (similar to “cut-out” CD’s, with the hole drilled in the jewel cases), and marked down to a buck a copy.
sold fewer than…The Advocate reported that the book sold fewer than 6000 copies in the first month after its release, despite saturation media coverage. Bay Windows had a great image on its website at the time:
That’s what I think is likely, tooOccam’s Razor leads to that conclusion. Dick Cheney has a distinct reputation as the sort of political operative who would be willing to use his daughter’s name to circumvent dollar donation limitations in campaign finance laws.
That’s actually more likely than Mary making the donation herself. But we’re not likely to know for sure if this is the case.
However, Mary is probably too loyal to her father to turn him in for a campaign finance law violation – so she’ll take the brunt of the criticism. It’s stupid and against her own interests, but not illegal for her to have made the donation. I would expect her to defend this as her own action publicly, while privately asking Daddy to be more discreet in his campaign donation money-laundering.
A reply to Mary CheneyLilly Allen and the folks at Manchester pride recorded this response
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
A reply to Mary Cheney editedLilly Allen and the folks at Manchester pride recorded this response