IGF CultureWatch

We can all wish Vice Presidential daughter Mary Cheney well in her intention to have a baby. If people want to go to the trouble of producing and caring for helpless infants and the even greater trouble of rearing them to be thoughtful and responsible adults, they deserve our blessing.

First announced a few weeks ago, Cheney's pregnancy recently became news again following her appearance at a panel discussion at New York's Barnard College where for the first time she spoke briefly about and defended her intention to have a child.

According to The New York Times, addressing the largely female audience, Cheney said, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years has shown there is no difference between children raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents. What matters is being raised in a stable, loving, environment."

Well said! And the world needs to hear that repeatedly from prominent people, although strict accuracy would note that almost all research has been conducted among female partners and that the research found some marginal differences between children raised by female and opposite-sex couples, some of them to the advantage of same-sex parents' children.

But there was a certain contrived naivet� in her claim that, "This is a baby ... It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate on either side of a political issue. It is my child." No doubt she did not and does not intend her pregnancy to be a political statement, but that does not mean it does not have political significance. It is simply foolish to pretend otherwise.

In our celebrity-driven culture, almost anything a prominent person does is fuel for public discussion. After all, her father is Vice President and Cheney herself has been deeply involved in partisan politics. She managed her father's 2004 vice presidential campaign and even subtitled her recent book, "A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life."

Then too, Cheney can hardy have avoided noticing that parenting by same-sex couples is a controversial topic on the social and religious right. And suddenly here we are with a prominent real-life example of something that is usually discussed in the abstract. So naturally discussion--or rather, polemics--surrounding the issue focus on her as the most prominent example.

A prominent lesbian couple having and raising a child is inevitably a political statement. It asserts in the face of vigorous disagreement that a lesbian couple having a child is just fine.

Mary Cheney also erred in her assessment of a recent exchange between her father and a CNN interviewer. CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Vice President Cheney what he thought of religious and social conservatives such as James Dobson who had criticized his daughter for having a baby.

Cheney refused to answer and told Blitzer that he was "over the line." What line would that be, one wonders, and in what way was Blitzer over it? A line separating public and private? Hardly that since Mary's lesbianism and pregnancy are part of the public record. A line barring discussion of parenting by same-sex partners? There is no such line.

Mary Cheney, always a dutiful daughter, expressed the same view when she said that Blitzer "was trying to get a rise out of my father." But Blitzer was in fact giving Cheney an opportunity to defend his daughter against scurrilous attacks.

Most fathers would jump at the opportunity to defend their children. But, of course, the Vice President, among the most political of men, did not want to criticize--or even disagree with--a prominent conservative who has supported the administration. So in a classic example of displaced aggression, Cheney lashed out at Blitzer rather than Dobson, pretending that he had asked an inappropriate question.

But why, one wonders could Cheney not have replied simply, "Dr. Dobson is welcome to his views," or "Lynne and I love our daughter and will love our new grandchild" or even--a little feisty here--"As a father it is personally very painful for me to hear people criticize my daughter."

And it sure would have shown more family values for him to have said, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years has shown there is no difference between children raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents. What matters is being raised in a stable, loving, environment."

I suspect that children do benefit from living with any two parents who see the world through different lenses and have different ways of relating to it. So if Dobson were truly worried about optimal parenting he would focus his attention on single parenting rather than attacking gay and lesbian parents.