'People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to,' Vice President Dick Cheney said in responding to a question on gay marriage. It came at a town hall meeting on the campaign trail in Davenport, Iowa on August 24.
Cheney had stated the same position in the televised vice presidential debate during the 2000 campaign. Log Cabin Republicans have been using a clip of that debate as part of their million dollar ad campaign against the Federal Marriage Amendment ( FMA ) .
In February President George W. Bush endorsed the FMA, which would limit marriage to that between a man and a woman. Cheney subsequently said he supported the administration position.
Some thought that Bush softened his position somewhat during an August 12 interview with CNN's Larry King when he said, if states 'want to provide legal protections for gays, that's great. But I do not want to change the definition of marriage.'
'Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue our family is very familiar with,' Cheney said in Iowa. 'With respect to the question of relationships, my general view is freedom means freedom for everybody.' It was the first time he had publicly discussed the fact that his daughter Mary is a lesbian. She works as the reelection campaign's director of presidential operations.
Cheney reiterated his belief that 'official sanction' of marriage historically has been handled by the states. While restating his preferences on the subject, Cheney concluded, 'But the President makes policy for the administration. He's made it clear that he does, in fact, support a constitutional amendment on this issue.'
'I think his perception was that the courts, in effect, were beginning to change, without allowing the people to be involved. The courts were making the judgment for the entire country.'
Cheney noted that the FMA did not have the votes to pass, and the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act ( DOMA ) 'may be sufficient to resolve the issue.'
Log Cabin Republicans executive director Patrick Guerriero was grateful that Cheney restated the views on gay marriage that he had expressed in 2000.
He used it as an opportunity to again push for a 'unity plank' in the Party Platform. Guerriero urged the Platform Committee 'to adopt language that makes it clear that voices, like those of Vice President Cheney, who may disagree with the Gary Bauers of the world are welcome in this party.'
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian task Force ( NGLTF ) , said, 'We are heartened that by taking a stand for his daughter, at long last Vice President Cheney is standing up for real family values.'
'His words, however, mean very little unless the Bush/Cheney administration withdraws its aggressive support of the Federal Marriage Amendment, the so-called Marriage Protection Act and numerous other attacks on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender families.'
'President Bush must be feeling the heat,' said Cheryl Jacques, president of the Human Rights Campaign ( HRC ) . 'Millions of Republican families, like the Cheneys, have gay friends and family members and are offended by President Bush's efforts to put discrimination in the Constitution.' HRC has endorsed John Kerry.