Dick Cheney, Liberal Crusader For Gay Rights

Because of human traits like hypocrisy, double standards, two-facedness, etc., the above title is of course tongue-in-cheek. People who think they are above the law -- are held to a different standard than those they are judging – tend to get very indignant when these judgments come boomeranging back to them. Nobody likes to get hoist on their own petard, and the funniest thing this side of a JibJab video is to watch how right wing ideologues react when their own righteousness gets squirted back at them.

As we all know by now, John Kerry, during the 3rd and final presidential debate on 10/13/04, when asked whether he thought homosexuality was a choice, mentioned the Cheneys' openly-lesbian daughter during his long-winded John Kerryesque answer. It doesn’t matter that Jon Edwards also mentioned the Cheneys’ daughter during the earlier vice presidential debate (without any barbs or slings from the Cheneys or the Republican Spin Machine). But when Kerry mentioned the same fact during the course of his answer, the Republican Orwellians and spinmeisters went into overdrive.

I realize Dick Cheney has not been a hard-core member of the Taliban wing of the Republican party (John Ashcroft, Allan Keyes, Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, [ad finitum, ad naseum]). Nevertheless, he is the most influential (sorry George, but we all know this) member of the party that supports the above-mentioned Spanish Inquisition Ayatollahs, and whose name gives gravitas to their constant efforts to propel our country back to the 12th century.

Now, here’s a simple fact that everyone with an IQ higher than their shoe size can easily grasp: If you’re constantly preaching fire and brimstone and eternal damnation to everyone who wears a green shirt, and someone in your immediate family is wearing a green shirt – uh, Duuhhh! – this simple fact is going to be pointed out to you. Dingdingdingdingdingdingding!!!

These Ayatollah/Spanish Inquisition/Taliban types always have a tough time grasping why their hatred and fanaticism comes back to haunt them: Jon Livingston and Henry Hyde (2 of the architects of the Clinton impeachment who had it revealed that they too had numerous extra-marital affairs), Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker (fire and brimstoners who sinned and then sobbed for forgiveness on nationwide TV), William Bennett (the world’s greatest living authority on who is and who isn’t moral and righteous and worthy, and then turns out to do more gambling than all of Reno put together), etc. And now the Cheneys. Again, they’re not breathing fire and brimstone, but they’re still aligned with the righteous bile-thumpers (oops, let’s put the B back in bile – bible-thumpers) who have marginalized and persecuted millions of homosexuals, small-time drug users, prostitutes and other victimless “criminals.” If the Cheneys were genuinely indignant at having their daughter’s sexual orientation mentioned during a presidential debate, think how they could have used their influence when other people’s sons and daughters were dragged through the Inquisition just for being gay, smoking marijuana, having illicit sex, or looking at dirty pictures. Every gay person -- and everyone who gets a 20-year jail sentence for possession of .0001 grams of marijuana – is somebody’s son or daughter.

George W. Bush pulled the same stunt, snarling “you leave my kids out of this” when a reporter tried to personalize the abortion debate by asking how he’d react if one of his daughters had her life threatened by an unwanted pregnancy.

Are the sons and daughters of Joe Sixpack less important, less “human,” than the sons and daughters of VIPs and Ayatollahs? Non-Hypocrite Republicans can take this opportunity to circle Yes or No.

I didn’t think so.