Mary Cheney is a Lesbian: the Meme continues with Bush, Mayor Bloomberg

Bush's spokesman Scott McClellan said: The President of the United States does not believe it was appropriate for Sen. Kerry to bring [up] Mary Cheney at the debate.

Same article, Mayor Bloomberg said: "I think it was inappropriate. I think everybody's orientation is their own business.... Nobody should be talking about that."

Entire genres of literature are dedicated to exploring what happens when people cannot say aloud what everyone agrees is true. Summary: It ends badly.

The uncomfortableness felt by Republicans about speaking a universally known truth shows Republicans -- the Cheneys --- do not regard gays and lesbians as their equals. To Dick Cheney, George Bush, Mayor Bloomberg, and the rest of the Republican leadership, gays and lesbians must be treated as being regrettably immoral. Any whiff of acceptance by Dick Cheney of his daughter would smell to his base of odious acceptance of gays in general. Perhaps, his base may worry, he secretly hopes for gay marriage? He's against the constitutional amendment!

Some call Kerry and Edward's statements "gay-baiting" -- the reprehensible practice of pointing out a fact about someone as an epithet. It was not gay-baiting; both Kerry and Edwards spoke respectfully and glowingly of Cheney's relationship with his lesbian daughter. In a world where gays are equals, this is a compliment -- a far cry from the race-baiting epithet-spitting "his sister married a black man". The confusion comes because the effect is the same -- racists or homophobics are turned off to Dick Cheney. The cause, however, is importantly different: respectful speech, vs. epithets. In an ideal world, all politicians would use respectful speech; none would use epithets.

Dick Cheney wants the homophobes to vote for him. And that's why he, and his wife, and president Bush, and Mayor Bloomberg are out this week, showing their bona fides that they think "lesbian" is a word too horrible to be said aloud.