Biden and Bernie Vie for LGBT Votes

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3 Comments for “Biden and Bernie Vie for LGBT Votes”

  1. posted by Jorge on

    Only a Republican could believe that.

    What Biden supported was the progressive good government approach to gay marriage. Dick Cheney supported the libertarian approach, saying gay and straight couples merited the same constitutional protections (Yay! Yay!). Basically gays have the freedom to form their own traditional relationships without getting punished; he did not support the legal recognition of those relationships–and he made it very clear he saw a distinction between the two. He did not even oppose the conservative good government approach, of banning it. On both questions he was neutral. What he wanted was to let the states decide. He never revealed how he wanted the states to decide.

    When he was asked the question in the 2000 vice presidential debate about gays and straights having the same constitutional rights, Cheney said:

    The fact of the matter is we live in a free society, and freedom means freedom for everybody. We shouldn’t be able to choose and say you get to live free and you don’t. That means people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into. It’s no one’s business in terms of regulating behavior in that regard. The next step then, of course, is the question you ask of whether or not there ought to be some kind of official sanction of the relationships or if they should be treated the same as a traditional marriage. That’s a tougher problem. That’s not a slam-dunk. The fact of the matter is that matter is regulated by the states. I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that’s appropriate. I don’t think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area. I try to be open-minded about it as much as I can and tolerant of those relationships. And like Joe, I’m also wrestling with the extent to which there ought to be legal sanction of those relationships.

    The quote in the article above shows him expressing the same position in 2004. When President Bush expressed the policy goal of a federal constitutional amendment banning legal recognition of SSM, the only rationale Vice President Cheney gave for opposing it was federalism.

    Dick Cheney’s statement in 2004 was important. It gave recognition that same sex marriages existed and that tolerance was here to stay. It showed there were more than two ways of looking at the issue and a way for the sharp divide to cool down. It gave a way forward for gays if the FMA were to pass, and a way forward for conservatives if SSM were recognized nationwide.

    I suppose in another sense it showed that the Vice President can be more progressive than the President.

    I consider conflating Cheney and Biden on the issue of SSM for the purpose of cheap one-upsmanship to be an insult to both their legacies.

  2. posted by Doug on

    Let’s not forget that the reason Cheney came to his position of gay rights is for one reason and one reason only. His daughter is an out lesbian. Were is not for that fact, he would still oppose gay rights.

    • posted by Jorge on

      *BUZZ!* Wrong!

      Dick Cheney opposed the reversal of the military’s ban on gay servicemembers as Secretary of Defense while his daughter was out. His daughter being gay was not sufficient. Stop spreading fake news!

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