My Turn ( A Christian View Point on Everyday Issues and News)

Senator Kerry and Mary Cheney

This story just would not go away. Anyone who watched the last debate saw how Senator Kerry threw a low blow at the Vice President by trying to use the Vice President's daughter's sexual orientation to make the Republican base uncomfortable. Boy does he regret that now.

Of all the articles and op-ed written on the story, this one by Zev Chafets of the New York Daily News hits the nail right on the head. Here is some of it:

Why Cheney's daughter? Kerry knows lots of famous people who believe - as he says Mary Cheney believes - that they were born gay. He could have cited Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank or New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey. Both are public men who could offer personal testimony about the inborn nature of homosexuality.

But that wasn't the point Kerry wanted to make. He was crying Mary to send a message to presumably homophobic Christian voters: Just in case you hadn't heard, the vice president harbors a practicing lesbian in the bosom of his family. ........

Since the debate, the Christian right has been rallying to the side of Mary Cheney. Well-known political preachers like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson have gone out of their way to defend her right to privacy. Conservative radio talk shows and Web sites have been flooded with denunciations of Kerry and support for Mary.

This reaction doesn't mean that the evangelical community has changed its doctrine, or its mind, on the sinful nature of homosexuality. It does reveal, however, that most born-again Protestants are not nearly as extreme - or as politically one-dimensional - as Kerry evidently imagined them to be.

Very well said! emphasis mine.

posted by elizabeth @ 11:42 AM