Speaking Of Black Sheep…

It is sad when a family gets divided over an issue. Tearing apart the Cheney family are daughters Liz and Mary. Mary is a lesbian who is married to Heather Poe and Liz is a right-wing conservative who doesn’t believe in marriage equality.

How Liz Cheney Became the Black Sheep of the Family
Her public and highly charged dispute with her gay sister Mary Cheney shows just how much times have changed.
The Atlantic
By Garance Franke-Ruta
Nov 18 2013

Every family has its black sheep, the opinionated outlier who is out of sync with the values of the others. Once upon a time that person might have been the gay or lesbian child. Times have changed, though, and today the black sheep is the family member who insists her lesbian sibling should be deprived of rights to which she is legally entitled.

With her self-serving public remarks against gay marriage on Fox News Sunday, Liz Cheney has now made herself into the black sheep of the Cheney family. Not even Cheney pere takes so extreme a position against the emotional well-being of a member of his hearth.

After remarks that Liz made on Fox where she said “I love Mary very much, I love her family very much. This is just an issue on which we disagree." Heather Poe wrote on Facebook,

I was watching my sister-in-law on Fox News Sunday (yes Liz, in fifteen states and the District of Columbia you are my sister-in-law) and was very disappointed to hear her say "I do believe in the traditional definition of marriage."

Liz has been a guest in our home, has spent time and shared holidays with our children, and when Mary and I got married in 2012 - she didn't hesitate to tell us how happy she was for us.

To have her now say she doesn't support our right to marry is offensive to say the least

I can't help but wonder how Liz would feel if as she moved from state to state, she discovered that her family was protected in one but not the other.

I always thought freedom meant freedom for EVERYONE.

Mary shared Heather's post on her Facebook page and added, “Liz — this isn’t just an issue on which we disagree you’re just wrong — and on the wrong side of history.”

What do the elder Cheney’s think? According to Politico, Dick and his wife Lynne support daughter Liz.

 “This is an issue we have dealt with privately for many years, and we are pained to see it become public,” Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, said in a statement. “Since it has, one thing should be clear. Liz has always believed in the traditional definition of marriage.”
[…]
But the elder Cheneys praised Liz’s behavior toward Mary, and warned against a distortion of her views.

Liz Cheney “has also always treated her sister and her sister’s family with love and respect, exactly as she should have done,” the parents wrote. “Compassion is called for, even when there is disagreement about such a fundamental matter and Liz’s many kindnesses shouldn’t be used to distort her position.”

At one time the elder Cheney said,

Her father has previously indicated support for gay marriage at the state level.

“I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone,” he said in 2009. “I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish.”

It sadden me to sisters torn apart like this, it is the new Civil War where the war between the north and south torn families apart over slavery. It also saddens me because I think it is politics that separated them, she seemed fine with her sister’s marriage until she decided to run against a moderate Republican incumbent. So Liz had to become a conservative Republican.