Mary Cheney Criticizes Her Sister on Same-Sex Marriage
Mary Cheney, the younger sister of Liz
Cheney, a Wyoming Senate candidate,
sharply criticized her sister’s stance on
same-sex marriage and urged her own
Facebook friends to share the message.
Posting on Facebook on Friday
evening, Mary Cheney, who is gay and
married her longtime partner last year,
wrote: “For the record, I love my sister,
but she is dead wrong on the issue of
marriage.”
Their father, former Vice President
Dick Cheney, supports same-sex
marriage, and the younger Cheney
echoed some of his language on the
issue when she added, “Freedom means
freedom for everyone.”
“That means that all families —
regardless of how they look or how they
are made — all families are entitled to
the same rights, privileges and
protections as every other,” Mary
Cheney wrote.
Earlier Friday, Liz Cheney revealed her
position on same-sex marriage, a topic
she has kept relatively quiet about since
declaring her candidacy in July against
incumbent Senator Mike Enzi,
Republican of Wyoming.
“I am not pro-gay marriage,” Liz
Cheney said in a statement responding
to an apparent push poll against her in
Wyoming. “I believe the issue of
marriage must be decided by the states,
and by the people in the states, not by
judges and not even by legislators, but
by the people themselves.”
That position — deferring to the will of
the voters on a state-by-state basis —
may represent something of a
compromise between total support or
opposition. But it did little to placate
her sister.
“It’s not something to be decided by a
show of hands,” Mary Cheney wrote.
And to emphasize that she was not
shying away from drawing attention to
her view, Mary Cheney concluded her
Facebook post: “Please like and share if
you agree.”
In an e-mail, Mary Cheney declined to
comment further on her sister’s
position, saying she would let her
Facebook post speak for itself.
The Cheney family dispute mirrors the
broader disagreement among
Republicans on same-sex marriage.
Less than a decade after George W.
Bush and Dick Cheney won re-election
in part thanks to conservative
enthusiasm over enshrining traditional
marriage into law, some in the party
believe they are losing voters,
particularly younger ones, over an
issue on which public opinion has
changed rapidly. But other Republicans
believe traditional marriage is a pillar
of family values, and in some cases are
reluctant to abandon their social
conservative base on the issue.
Liz Cheney’s stance underlines the
degree to which full-throated support
for same-sex marriage, even in a
libertarian-leaning state like Wyoming,
still poses a political risk in a
Republican primary.
