# Posted 8:33 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

THREE CHEERS FOR MARY CHENEY: Can a principled advocate of gay rights be Republican? That is the question I asked myself while reading Andrew Sullivan's cover story [subscription required] in the current issue of The New Republic.

That is the question I asked myself because it is often the first question I get asked by old liberal friends who are puzzled by my departure from the Democratic Party. For a lot of my demographic counterparts (young, upper middle class, Ivy-or-equivalent professionals), gay rights is a defining issue that makes it impossible to be Republican.

To a certain extent, I felt that way myself just six or seven years ago. In the summer of 2000, I found myself driving up I-35 in central Texas, trying to persuade a good friend of mine (and native Texan) to vote for Al Gore and against George Bush in the upcoming election. When he asked why, gay rights was one of the first issues I mentioned, along with the environment.

Why is gay rights such a defining issue for so many liberals? The short answer is moral clarity. I would argue that the struggle to overcome official discrimination against minorities is the ethical autobiography of American liberalism. It is the narrative that explains, more than any other, the purpose of liberalism, past, present and future. The issue of gay rights fits perfectly into that narrative.

Is the question of gay rights different from the question of civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s? Yes, and in a substantial manner. Around a week ago, I was watching Mind of Mencia on Comedy Central. In one segment, the show's host, Carlos Mencia, took a camera to West Hollywood in order to ask local gay residents whether the struggle for gay rights is the civil rights of movement. Generally, they said yes. In response, Mencia would ask things like "So have the police attacked you with guard dogs and fire hoses?" or "Do you they give you trouble when you try to vote?"

(NB: If any of you still have that episode on your DVRs, I would appreciate a fact-check on my recollections.)

Regardless of whether the struggle for gay rights has the moral and political significance of the struggle against Jim Crow, I still think it is important for any Republican who supports those rights to ask about the ethical implications of belonging to a party that tends to oppose them rather strenuously. No one ever agrees with their own party 100%, but since this is an issue that concerns discrimination, the moral stakes are higher.

Which brings us back to Andrew Sullivan's cover story. As Sullivan tells it, Mary Cheney's pregnancy is the pivotal event that will bring GOP homophobia crashing down upon itself. Why? Becuase conservative intellectuals:

Kn[o]w that, if gayness were accepted as involuntary, then the debate would eventually collapse on them and become an indisputable matter of civil rights.

For Sullivan, Cheney is the nail in the coffin of the argument that being gay is voluntary:

Her very existence is an inconvenient truth. Usually, the architects of ideology can distance themselves from reality deftly enough to avoid embarrassment. But not this time. Cheney is the very visible daughter of arguably the most powerful Republican vice president in U.S. history.

I'm not sure the logic follows between Cheney being gay and homosexuality being involuntary, but from the vantage point of political discourse, Cheney's sexual orientation may have the impact Sullivan is hoping for. Undoubtedly, it has forced Cheney's father to break with the party line on gay marriage and avoid any substantive criticism of homosexuality. The President supports a constitutional ban on gay marriage, but he doesn't criticize homosexuality per se.

If leading conservatives can't argue that there is something instrinsically wrong with homosexuality, it will become harder and harder to deny homosexuals any right given to other Americans. Yet in spite of his firm belief that victory is on the horizon, Sullivan has some very harsh words for conservative pundits who refuse to get as emotional about gay rights as he does.

For example, Sullivan calls Jonah Goldberg a "nimble enabler of anti-gay discrimination" even though Goldberg has nothing against gays and supports civil unions. What Sullivans condemns is the decision of Goldberg and numerous other Republicans to maintain a "strategic silence" with regard to gay rights rather than rushing to the barricades. What's wrong with silence? Sullivan writes that:

On Mary Cheney, [conservatives] are forced to take a stand. But any stand either attacks the base of the party or attacks someone they know and love. So they have no alternative but to stand very still, say nothing, and hope that someone changes the subject. It is as close to intellectual and moral bankruptcy as one can imagine.

In other words, pro-gay rights Republicans have an obligation to take on the party majority. As Dr. King said, "We will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."

So on any issue of principle, is it beyond the pale to maintain a strategic silence? Coincidentally, the editors of The New Republic provide an accidental answer to this question in the same issue as Sullivan's cover story. In their editorial praising Nancy Pelosi's decision to rein in her party's ideologues, the editors observe that:

Much as we would like to see the odious "don't ask, don't tell" policy [for gays in the military] retired, it probably makes sense to fight other battles first.

So are the editors of TNR no less guilty than conservative pundits of abandoning a friend in need? Or is it permissible to make a subjective judgment that other issues are more imporant?

I incline toward the latter position. But a subjective judgment still has to be a defensible one. I'm not a relativist one this point, willing to respect all judgments. Rather, I believe that the cause of gay rights has a momentum of its own. As Sullivan himself observes, the facts on the ground point toward equality before the law as inevitable. (7) opinions -- Add your opinion