A Website has been set up to wage a letter-writing campaign pressuring the lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney to oppose a proposed Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
The site's home page features an electronic postcard, to be submitted to Mary Cheney in care of the White House, urging her to oppose the proposal publicly. Though it features sample text, it encourages visitors to replace it with their own public letter to her. The group is also trying to stir an advertisement-buying campaign likewise pressuring her to oppose the amendment proposal.
The sample text reads: Vice President Cheney, your father, recently said he would support adding anti-gay prejudice to the US Constitution, making you and millions of other Americans second-class citizens. As an open lesbian who has worked for years as a public advocate for gay civil rights, you are in a unique position to defend yourself and your community in this dire hour. Won't you join us in publicly opposing this bigoted un-American proposal? Sincerely, A concerned citizen.
"President Bush and far-right extremists want to add anti-gay language to the US Constitution," said the organizer of the campaign, DontAmend.com, in a question-and-answer section on the site. "As the openly lesbian daughter of Vice President Cheney, Mary Cheney is uniquely situated to help her community in this dire hour. She already has a history of publicly working on our issues, from her time as a paid gay liaison for Coors and serving on the board of the Republican Unity Coalition (a gay Republican group devoted to stamping out anti-gay prejudice in the Republican Party). Now that Mary's father has said he would support adding anti-gay prejudice to the US Constitution, we believe Mary has a unique opportunity here to do the right thing and make a difference."
The group insists they are not picking on Cheney, whom they describe as a woman who has been public in her past advocacy of gay and lesbian issues. "The public has the right to ask this very public person why she is running the re-election campaign of a man who would make her and millions of other Americans second-class citizens," the group says on site. "The public also has the right to ask Vice President Cheney why he believes gay relationships are a threat to society, but then hires a person in a committed gay relationship to run his re-election effort."
When he campaigned in 2000, the vice president said during a televised debate with his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, that gay marriage was properly a state and not a federal issue. "The fact of the matter is, we live in a free society, and freedom means freedom for everybody," he said at the time. "And I think that means that people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into. It's really no one else's business in terms of trying to regulate or prohibit behavior in that regard."
DontAmend.com said they think the vice president has since flip-flopped on the issue "under pressure from far right groups," with his recent remarks that he would support a White House push for a Constitutional amendment outlawing marriage except between a man and a woman.
"Vice President Cheney is the ultimate target of this campaign," the group said. "Mary is simply one of our last best hopes for convincing her father to do the right thing and defend his daughter and millions of other sons and daughters who will become second-class citizens if this amendment is ratified."
