I really can't understand Mary Cheney. I don't want to talk, politically, about what it is to be gay, but to talk informally about it. I don't really care what Kerry or Bush says about Mary Cheney. What I care about is how Mary Cheney can possibly reconcile in her head what is happening around her.
As someone who has been in both same sex and opposite sex relationships, I feel like I can speak about this issue with some semblance of empathy. I mean, I feel very strongly about gay marriage; if I were still in a same-sex relationship, I'd want the same things I'm able to have with S. And I have a lot of friends (oh, so cliche, but so true) who are currently in same-sex relationships, or someday hope to be. I've spoken of my true nature as a fag hag, and to think that all these friends can't share in the legality of marriage is ugly. It's ugly.
So here's the thing: what the fuck is going on in Mary Cheney's head? I'm sure she loves her father and mother, and I'm quite sure they love her. Dick Cheney is nothing if not pragmatic, and he must be pragmatic enough to realize that she is who she is, and love her for her. But I fail to understand how someone can somehow separate that from every other gay man and woman in America.
I've always labored under the delusion (or truth) that all it takes is to humanize the situation, and you can convince people to drop their hateful ways. That's somehow either not true of the Cheneys and Bushes. I want to shake Mary Cheney, and beg her not to let her family (her family!) get away with that shit. It's hard to respect a person who it seems doesn't respect herself. Either that, or she really loves money. Because I'm sure Papa Dick pays her enough. More than enough.
Anyway, I guess I was lucky, once upon a time, because my family loved and accepted me, and made it clear that the feeling wasn't just about me. They loved and accepted my friends, and they only ever loved me. I wish that the Cheney's would set an example, and come out and say, love your sons and daughters, and wish for them what you would wish for them under other circumstances. Because it's clear that many do not. Many, many Americans recoil in disgust upon learning their child has fallen in love with someone of the same sex. It's a shame, really.
Something my dad said about the whole thing really made a mark on me. He said to me that he didn't understand how a parent could treat their child so badly. He said we have so little time together anyway, that to mar it with hate, to ruin it with disapproval and anger was shameful, and that the thing was to love. To love for the longest time possible. And it made sense. The choice should be to love, as long and as hard as possible. Barring nothing.
I wish Americans understood that.
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