well, I'll be switched! Mary got knocked up! ... somehow

below I've posted an article about Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of our illustrious Vice. Does anybody have any thoughts? Does anybody read this blog anymore? Hello, is this thing on? I have thoughts, surely- just thought I'd see what was rolling around in your heads, my cyberspace compatriots, first.

also, here's a coupla photos of the old girl, ifnya don't know whom I'm speaking of.


holding the Bible for dear old dad.


that's mary on the left, and partner heather poe on the right.


Mary Cheney Expecting Baby With Her Partner

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By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: December 6, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — Mary Cheney, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is expecting a baby with her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, Mr. Cheney’s office said today.

Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney, said the vice president and his wife, Lynne Cheney, were “looking forward with eager anticipation” to the baby’s birth, which is expected this spring and will bring to six the number of grandchildren the Cheneys have.

Mr. Cheney’s office would not provide details about how Mary Cheney became pregnant or by whom, and Ms. Cheney did not respond to messages left at her office and with her book publisher, Simon & Schuster.

The announcement of Mary Cheney’s pregnancy, which was first reported today by The Washington Post, and her expected status as a same-sex parent, prompted new debate over the administration’s opposition to gay marriage.

Family Pride, a gay rights group, noted that Ms. Cheney’s home state of Virginia does not recognize same-sex marriages or civil unions to same-sex couples.

“The news of Mary Cheney’s pregnancy exemplifies, once again, how the best interests of children are denied when lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens are treated unfairly and accorded different and unequal rights and responsibilities than other parents,” the group’s executive director, Jennifer Chrisler, said in a statement.

Focus on the Family, an influential Christian group that has provided crucial political support to President Bush, released a statement that criticized child rearing by same-sex couples.

“Mary Cheney’s pregnancy raises the question of what’s best for children,” the group’s director of issues analysis, Carrie Gordon Earll, said in a statement. “Just because it’s possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father doesn’t mean it’s the best for the child. Love can’t replace a mom or a dad.”

In 2004, Ms. Cheney worked on the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, which was victorious in part because of the so-called values voters who were drawn to the polls in key states by ballot measures seeking to ban same-sex marriage.

Mr. Bush that year voiced strong approval for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, as he did this year, too. While gay rights groups called on Ms. Cheney to speak out against the proposed ban in 2004, she remained silent.

But Ms. Cheney wrote in a book published earlier this year that she had considered resigning from the campaign after learning that Mr. Bush would endorse the proposed amendment. She wrote that her father talked her into staying, arguing that other important issues were at stake in the 2004 campaign.

As she promoted her book this spring, Ms. Cheney said a federal ban on same-sex marriage would “write discrimination into the Constitution.” She also made a donation this year to a group fighting a ballot initiative outlawing gay marriage in Virginia. Voters approved the initiative in November.

The vice president has hinted at his own disapproval of the proposed amendment. Asked where he stood on the issue during a campaign stop in Iowa in 2004, Mr. Cheney said, “Freedom means freedom for everyone.”

Ms. Cheney’s pregnancy is certain to add another wrinkle to the complex relationship between the White House and evangelical Christian leaders, some of whom complained this year that Mr. Bush was not doing enough to fight for a ban on gay marriage.

Dana Perino, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bush, said that Mr. Cheney had recently told the president about his daughter’s pregnancy and that “the president said he was happy for him.” The Cheneys have five grandchildren by their other daughter, Elizabeth.

Ms. Cheney, 37, is a vice president at AOL; Ms. Poe, a former park ranger, is 45.