Kerry and the Lesbian
Bush won. Anyone who doesn' t think otherwise, is too cynical to see the amazing thing democracy in Afghanistan is.
And what on earth was Kerry thinking by bringing up Mary Cheney's sexuality? Mary Cheney has never tried to rally the homosexual community to Bush's side, she wasn't there at the debate, and she is not running for office. And aside from not hiding her homosexuality, she has never spoken about it publicly. That was an insane move on Kerry's part, and I can think of only two reasons why he might have done it.
1.) He is trying to rally his homosexual base by insinuating that Cheney would deny his own daughter rights, which is clever but evil,
or
2.) He is trying to turn off Bush's conservative Christian base by saying that Bush/Cheny are closet "homosekshal" lovers (in the straight sense). This was so stupid because it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Christian right. It plays into a stereotype that liberals wholeheartedly believe, but is fundamentally untrue, that Christian conservatives would like to see all homosexuals hang from the neck until dead.
For him to bring up the sex-life of a candidates daughter in front of the nation was unchivalrous, ungentlemanly, and has a most desperate quality to it.
Here was Scheffer's question:
"Both of you are opposed to gay marriage. But to understand how you have come to that conclusion, I want to ask you a more basic question. Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?"
Here is Kerry's asinine answer:
"We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as. {Emphasis mine}.
I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice. I've met people who struggled with this for years, people who were in a marriage because they were living a sort of convention, and they struggled with it.
And I've met wives who are supportive of their husbands or vice versa when they finally sort of broke out and allowed themselves to live who they were, who they felt God had made them.
I think we have to respect that.
The president and I share the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. I believe that. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman.
But I also believe that because we are the United States of America, we're a country with a great, unbelievable Constitution, with rights that we afford people, that you can't discriminate in the workplace. You can't discriminate in the rights that you afford people.
You can't disallow someone the right to visit their partner in a hospital. You have to allow people to transfer property, which is why I'm for partnership rights and so forth.
Now, with respect to DOMA and the marriage laws, the states have always been able to manage those laws. And they're proving today, every state, that they can manage them adequately."
OK. "Being who she was?" What is he talking about? The fact that he mentioned Mary Cheney first and in such a poorly worded way makes me think he was waiting for a question like that and struggling to find a way to mention it.
And why is he bringing up gay people who deceived their straight marriage partners? Anyone who does that is a supreme asshole and couldn't make up for it if they tried for the rest of their lives. And if you don't believe that, flip it. Who's the bigger asshole - Ellen or Anne?
And as far as homosexuality not being a choice, well how do you know? For some it may not be, for some it may. It depends on the individual. Hell, I'm straight, but I could be gay if I thought it would piss off my mom enough. Don't think I haven't considered it.
But it really was a stupid question.
As far as homosexuality is concerned, I'm pretty neutral. If you want to tell me, fine. If you don't want to talk about it, I respect that in the same way that I respect anyone not discussing their sex-life. I will assume that you are dignified, not ashamed. Which is why the whole Mary Cheney thing upsets me. She has chosen not to discuss her personal life, but there goes John Kerry waving it around on national television like a pair of dirty drawers. Shame be on him.