NEW YORK – As Vice President Dick Cheney stepped onto the podium in Madison Square Garden, the eyes of some were trained not on the stage but the audience, searching for a glimpse of his daughter Mary.
And there she was, in the family’s box, sitting next to her partner in their first prominent public appearance as a lesbian couple.
The vice president, in his speech accepting renomination Wednesday night, did not mentioned Mary or her older sister, Elizabeth, choosing instead to feature his four grandchildren. At the end of the vice president’s remarks, he was joined onstage by Elizabeth and the grandchildren, while Mary and Heather Poe applauded from their seats.
Their prominence in the first row of the box amounted to a silent resistance against religious conservatives, who have made Mary Cheney’s sexual orientation an issue.
Her decision not to slink from the controversy raised few hackles in Madison Square Garden on Wednesday.
“Sometimes people think we’re ogres. But we don’t care about that stuff,” said Judy Levine, an Indiana delegate.
Greg Curtis, a delegate from Salt Lake City, said that while he does not approve of homosexuality or gay marriage, he respects the rights of others to make their own choices.
“If I were vice president and she were my daughter, I’d want her sitting by my side too,” Curtis said.
Mary Cheney, 35, is her father’s top campaign aide and closest confidante. Her sexual orientation was forced back into the news last week when her father, on a campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa, was asked about same-sex marriage.
“Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it’s an issue that our family is very familiar with,” Cheney replied. “My general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone. People … ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.”
Cheney went on to stake out a different position from President Bush, who has called for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The vice president said he thought the issue should be left to the states to decide.
Associated Press
Mary Cheney (left), daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, sits with her partner, Heather Poe, in Madison Square Garden during the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night.
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