In today’s post, Richard Cohen writes about the Mary Cheney flap and seems to address the Maximum Leader directly:
…ever since that day I have believed that there is a biological basis
to homosexuality, just as there is to heterosexuality. (I don’t remember
choosing to be straight.) It’s a belief that has become a conviction as
scientific study after scientific study confirmed that we do not choose our
sexual orientation…
…let’s turn our attention to what President Bush said on the same
topic. He was asked by Bob Schieffer whether he thought “homosexuality is a
choice.” This is what Bush said: “You know, Bob, I don’t know. I just don’t
know.”
In the best of all possible worlds, Schieffer would have asked, “Why
not? How could you not know? Don’t you know any gay people, Mr. President? Have
you ever asked them? Don’t you know any parents of gay children and have you
asked them about their kids and when they knew, sometimes at a very young age,
that their son or daughter was homosexual? In all those private lunches with
Cheney, all the time you two have spent together, didn’t you once have the
intellectual curiosity to ask your vice president about his daughter?” After
all, Bush was making policy in this area — trying to bar gays from ever
marrying in these United States…
…Homosexuality may not be a matter of choice — but willful ignorance
sure is.
Cohen also predicts:
Deep in his heart — which too often functions as his brain — Bush knows he has pandered to ignorance and homophobia. The effort to ban gay marriage by constitutional amendment is so patently not needed — states can do what they want in this area — that it is nothing but a statement of theological or cultural conviction. It does not belong in the Constitution, and Bush, I promise you, will instantly neglect the matter if he wins a second term.
So if one believes in equality, should one be less concerned about Bush’s pandering to bigotry because it is insincere and he won’t follow through? Or should we be more angry at a cyncial ploy to arouse the bigotry of people unlikely to drop the issue post-November?
