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$75,000 in bull semen missing

By R.J. Beaumia

The above headline, which is real and was all over the media last week, has nothing to do with this column. I used it as a distraction. It's a tactic I learned from the Republicans who, for distraction's sake, could use a lot more of that bull semen these days.
What George W. Bush needs is for something really gay to happen, an event to push his name down below the fold of the Washington Post for a couple of weeks – a revival of "Oklahoma" with a nude, all male cast or, say, a Liza Minnelli tour.
How about a Karl Rove fantasy-camp scenario: George Michael… caught in a restroom… at Cirque du Soleil… snorting crystal meth off a 14 year-old hustler's butt. Oh what the hell, let's make the hustler 12 years old.
No, unfortunately for Bush the headlines have been almost gerbil-free for over a month now. It seems that each of his dad's "thousand points of light" shines upon one of W's scandals. Junior's got Katrina-gate, Medicare-gate, DeLay-gate, Frist-gate, Miers-gate, Alito-gate, Scooter-gate, Rove-gate, and Dick-gate. That's right, even the Whore of Halliburton can't find a hole dark enough in which to escape.
One Cheney who hasn't been getting bad press is the world's only known Republican lesbian, Mary. Then again, she's not getting any good press either. She's just… there, getting press, sort of (with a lousy haircut I might add). Mom and Dad can't kill her but they're not required to brag about her, or even acknowledge her.
Poor Mary. If it wasn't for Heather Poe she'd be more ignored than a bar of soap in France.
Dick and Lynne's stealth-child was in attendance at last week's White House state dinner for Britain's Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla. Everyone in Washington who wasn't indicted was there, most of them with their spouses. Mary Cheney was there with her "guest" Heather Poe. Yes, that's right – "guest." That's what Ms. Poe was called on the official list.
My mother and father have been each other's "guests" for over 45 years. I happen to have had a couple of "guests" myself who, amongst other things, spent a lot of time at my house, listened to me whine, were nice to me when I didn't deserve it, took out my garbage, and occasionally stuck their hands down my pants.
Technically, legally, Mary Cheney and Heather Poe are no more connected than are Melissa Rivers and talent. It doesn't matter that one is the first person the other sees in the morning or that Heather worries when Mary gets the flu or that she misses her when she's not around. If, God forbid, Mary Cheney should die tomorrow, Heather would probably be kicked out of her own house. And you know the Cheneys would allow it. I think Lynne would give her a lift to the YWCA, though… or maybe bus fare.
Back in 2000, when Lynne Cheney was out stumping for Dick, as it were, she was asked by ABC's Cokie Roberts about what it was like to have a daughter who "declared she's openly gay." Cheney shot back in disgust, "Mary has never declared such a thing… I'm surprised, Cokie, that even you would want to bring it up on this program."
In 2004 Mary Cheney was her father's re-election campaign manager. But at the Republican National Convention, when it came time between speeches to bring up family members on the dais, when the whole Bush and Cheney clans were up on stage smiling and waving at the delegates and "the base" out in TV-land, Mary, daughter and manager, and her partner Heather Poe were conspicuously absent. Twice.
So, according to the rhetoric of Log Cabin Republicans and gay conservatives, Mary Cheney's six years as the nation's most visible, out, powerful gay female Republican, with her subtle approach to being queer, should have resulted in swaying her father and his cronies, at least a little, to see that gays aren't so bad after all. You would think that she could at least get the White House to list her partner as her "partner" on a dinner guest list.
But that didn't happen. Do you know why? The answer is, to paraphrase Leah Delaria, because she's a dyke. Yep, that's right, Mary Cheney's a dyke. Yeah everyone, she's a GREAT BIG DYKE!
Yet we're still hearing all the rhetoric from Log Cabin Republican president Patrick Guerriero about using the soft sell. He says that gay conservatives, by not screaming about equality and upsetting everyone, have "discreetly and impressively helped advance equality."
Yeah, Patrick, your conciliation sure helped with the marriage issue in California, one of the gayest places on earth; a moderate Republican governor not-so-discreetly told us that we're equal – just not that equal. Look, if the GOP won't give us our rights to full citizenship under those ideal circumstances, then we are just "guests" and it's time for you to re-examine your political philosophy.
Two people in a well-adjusted gay couple don't call their soul mates "guests." Why not just use the word "luggage," instead? In this case it's just as personal.
It's obvious even to William F. Buckley that America is living under an evil, thuggish, corrupt government as it is. Do we as gay men and women have to have the added humiliation of being treated as less than human, like a Samsonite carry-on?
I'll say it one more time: We do not have to cater to these people. We do not have to be wary of organized religion. We do not have to have to be the warm hearts reaching out like we're at a Diana Ross concert. We do not ask for what is ours, we take it. Our rights as Americans are indisputable.
In Mary Cheney's case, if the Republicans can treat one of their own children this way now, they're not going to treat the rest of us any better. No amount of bull semen in the world can cover that up.

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