Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (19018)	10/15/2004 4:26:52 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Yes. A common liberal belief (still actually unproven to the best of my knowledge, but possible) is that sexual preference is inborn- -genetic. That makes it no different than being born male, female, ugly, black, white, Asian, or any number of other differentiations among people. It is something you have no control over. Someone can be ugly as sin and have sterling character. I have known such. However, I truly do not think Kerry meant it unkindly. Suppose Cheney, then Bush, had made reference to this in the debates: byroncrawford.com Suppose it was something like "And we all remember the appearance Mr. Kerry's daughter put in at the Cannes Film Festival. And her fashion statement." Would you take that as simply a friendly remark? Come now, Suma, these guys aren't golfing buddies; their political rivals running national campaigns for the Presidency of the United States. I will tell you this. If he did I will not vote for him. Then you'd better find another candidate (I'm sure it won't be Bush), because he and Edwards did. In both cases the references were gratuitous, unnecessary comments- -like they were itching for an opportunity to get them in. I thought that he meant it as a piece of information to the right wing who believe that gays have a choice about choose to be what they are. THEN you DO realize it was NOT just a friendly offhand remark and in fact was politically motivated. AND it did back fire. And it should have. So what? This is like saying because that because Nixon had been pilloried so badly in the press over Watergate, he should not have had to face impeachment. I agree however over and over that he should not have used Mary just as I now think her parents are doing her a big disservice by keeping this ups. OK. What are GWB and Cheney doing to keep his daughter in the public spotlight? Other than Cheney expressing his outrage at the opposition using her for political purposes, that is. Do you think he should laud her attackers? Let me point out something else: Not uncommonly in a situation like this, the family breaks relations with the stray. Cheney and his wife did not. She is still accepted and welcome in the family. More than that, Cheney had enough confidence in her intellect and judgement to make her his campaign manager. It appears to me that the Democrats are complaining about the mote in Cheney's eye while ignoring the log in their own.

To: Suma who wrote (19018)	10/15/2004 8:18:37 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Outing Mary Cheney October 15, 2004; Page A14 If Americans didn't know it before Wednesday night's debate, they know it now: Dick and Lynne Cheney have a gay daughter. How this piece of personal information about a low-profile member of the Vice President's family is relevant to the election is anyone's guess, but John Kerry and John Edwards somehow think it is. Both brought it up out of the blue during their debates, though at least in Mr. Edwards's case Mr. Cheney was sitting next to him. The references -- Mr. Kerry's especially -- were gratuitous, and the fact that Mary Cheney came up twice suggests that it wasn't an accident but part of a deliberate political strategy. That impression was reinforced by Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill, who told Fox News in a post-debate interview that Ms. Cheney was "fair game." It's hard to know precisely what's going on here, but we can think of two possibilities. One is gay identity politics. The distasteful practice of "outing" public figures has become popular in recent years as some gays seek personal and/or political affirmation by publicizing the private lives of politicians, business leaders, Hill staffers and so forth. Mr. and Mrs. Cheney have not kept their daughter's lesbianism a secret but neither have they shouted it to the sky. (In the days before the GOP Convention the Vice President mentioned it briefly at a campaign rally in Davenport, Iowa.) By outing Mary Cheney before millions of viewers on prime-time television, Messrs. Kerry and Edwards may hope to score points with their base of gay activists. Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian political organization, was quick to praise Mr. Kerry's words Wednesday night. The other possible motive is more subterranean: depressing voter turnout, specifically among Christian and other cultural conservatives. It's no secret that a large evangelical vote is key to a Bush victory, especially in swing states. Republicans are devoting considerable effort to getting more evangelicals to the polls this year. Many stayed home in 2000 for want of an inspiring issue, or perhaps because of the late reports of Mr. Bush's drunk-driving arrest as a young man. But gay marriage might well be a potent motivating force this year, and in states where that's on the ballot -- such as Ohio -- the turnout of cultural conservatives is expected to be high. That has been the case everywhere the issue has appeared on state ballots so far, recently in Missouri. Our guess is that by throwing a spotlight on Ms. Cheney -- and on her father's opposition to a Constitutional amendment on gay marriage -- Messrs. Kerry and Edwards were trying to send a cultural message that there's really no difference between the two tickets, so you evangelicals might as well stay home. If that's true, then the Kerry campaign may be making a profound miscalculation -- both about the religious right and the larger religious middle of "tolerant traditionalists," to quote former Clinton aide Bill Galston. Liberals often make the mistake of assuming that anyone who opposes gay marriage is a bigot. In truth, there's been a huge shift in attitudes toward homosexuality over the past 25 years. When Mr. Bush speaks of tolerance and acceptance, as he did on Wednesday night, he is reflecting the views of most Americans, including most of those on the religious right. The gay marriage issue motivates these voters not out of hostility to gay Americans but because of what they believe is its challenge to a vital and venerable cultural institution. These voters didn't raise the marriage issue to its current prominence, after all, but responded after courts imposed gay marriage on voters in other states whose laws might one day be imposed on them too. (Like Mr. Cheney, we oppose a federal gay marriage amendment and think it should be left to the states.) Amid an obvious public backlash, Mr. Kerry issued a statement yesterday explaining that he had merely been trying to "say something positive about the way strong families deal with the issue." Meanwhile, Elizabeth Edwards told a radio interviewer that Lynne Cheney might feel "a certain degree of shame" because her daughter is a lesbian. This pleasantry was in response to Mrs. Cheney's comment that Mr. Kerry's remarks were "a cheap and tawdry political trick." Sounds right to us. online.wsj.com