Last May, I got an early draft of Mary Cheney's atrocious memoir, moronically entitled "Now It's My Turn." I started my review with:
Like many others, I was kind of hoping self-loathing lesbian Mary Cheney had just crawled off into a hole somewhere. Somewhere reserved for The Good Germans. But, no, she's back with a vengeance -- and a book deal.
Now, it turns out, she's back with a vengeance and a fetus-- thanks to frozen sperm, mail-ordered just in time for Christmas! Actually, she's been pregnant for a few months, but naturally chose to wait until after the election to reveal the blessed event. Come to think of it, do the Cheney's ever do anything from a place not of utter cynicism?
We have endured the Vice President's dishonesty about everything from his health, to his energy meetings, to Iraq, to his hunting accident. And even Mrs. C got in on the act, smearing Jim Webb and lying about her own bad lesbian fiction, as she disingenuously promoted her "children's book" the week before the election.
But the special disgust I, and so many others, feel for Mary Cheney belongs uniquely to her. Because she stands for nothing. One of the more delicious ironies of her impending motherhood is that her father's administration helped ban gay marriage in Virginia, so Mary's field-hockey playing life partner, Heather, will not have any legal relation to their child in their home state.
Another delicious irony lies in the messages of hatred and condemnation that are pouring out from the conservative "family" groups. Janice Crouse of "Concerned Women for America" (don't the names just kill you?) described the pregnancy as "unconscionable." The Concerned Janice continued, "It's very disappointing that a celebrity couple like this would deliberately bring into the world a child that will never have a father."
So that's the big objection? No father? Perhaps Concerned Janice and those like her are worried something awful might happen to the fatherless child.... like becoming a lesbian. After all, isn't that their biggest nightmare?
My biggest nightmare is that we live in a world where people like Mary Cheney would rather order sperm-to-go from a catalog than adopt a child. With all the privilege she enjoys, she could have easily skipped the long waiting lists, and the humiliating interviews, and the interminable waiting in foreign countries for the chance to bring home an at-risk baby. Because, after all, those are things for the common folk. The decent folk. That is not to say artificial insemination is inherently indecent, but wouldn't it be great if the Mary Cheney's of the world decided to give something back for a change?
When was the last time you saw the Cheneys-- or the Bushes-- even read a book to a child? Was it "My Pet Goat," while America was being attacked on 9/11? When does this administration ever speak about children, other than in terms of test scores? Have they ever inspired any one of us to lend a hand to the less fortunate? Have they shown us by example? Do they not allow millions of African children to suffer needlessly while wasting money elsewhere?
Weren't we promised compassionate conservatives? Instead, we got people who raise people like Mary Cheney-- A person so at war with her own values that the only people defending her pregnancy today are the gay rights groups that she campaigned to destroy.