Maggie Gallagher is wrong about almost everything—but she’s right about Mary and Liz:
Sisters Liz and Mary Cheney have been having a very public feud over marriage equality, and some observers, even one of the leading opponents of equal marriage rights, are wondering if it’s maybe just a little bit staged.
“The Cheney family is a very close family, and I don’t believe they would have this spat in public, except for the fact that it’s good for both of the sisters,” marriage equality foe Maggie Gallagher said last week on The Diane Rehm Show, a talk show originating in Washington, D.C., and carried on public radio stations nationwide. “It gives Mary a chance to air her deeply held, passionate moral convictions and advance the ball for gay marriage. And it helps Liz Cheney get elected senator in the state of Wyoming.”
It may not actually help her that much; she’s running against incumbent Mike Enzi in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate from that state, and she trails him badly in polls.
I agree with Maggie here—and it feels weird to type that—but I wouldn’t describe Mary’s feelings on marriage equality as “deeply held, passionate moral convictions.” Someone who felt passionately about marriage equality would not have given $2,500 to Mitt Romney. The GOP nominee in 2012 pledged to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage in all 50 states. Romney wanted to nullify the marriages of same-sex couples who lived—and had already married—in marriage equality states. That puts Mitt far to the right of Liz on this issue. Liz, after all, just wants states to make up their own minds on marriage equality, she’s not promising to roll back marriage equality in other states. But Mary gave Mitt money and, presumably, her vote as well. So either Mary became passionate about marriage equality sometime since last November or this whole fight with her sister was staged to benefit both of them—Liz with haters in the GOP base and Mary with the LGBT community.
My money is on the latter.