Mary Cheney
INDIANAPOLIS — A daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney is joining the fight against a proposed constitutional amendment in Indiana to ban same-sex marriage, The Indianapolis Star reported.
Mary Cheney, a lesbian who was legally married in the District of Columbia, will host a reception Dec. 11 for Freedom Indiana, a bipartisan coalition aimed at defeating the proposed amendment.
“Freedom means freedom for everyone,” Cheney wrote in an e-mail sent to Freedom Indiana supporters and posted Tuesday on the group’s website. “For me, that’s not just another saying. It’s who I am — the core of what I believe. No one should be denied the fundamental liberties we all deserve.”
Cheney’s participation in the Indiana campaign comes as she and her sister, GOP Senate candidate Liz Cheney, fight over gay marriage. The Cheney sisters’ feudspilled out in the open on TV and Facebook last week.
Liz Cheney, who is challenging Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi in a GOP primary, has said she believes in a “traditional definition of marriage.” Mary Cheney’s wife, Heather Poe, said on Facebook that recent comments by Liz Cheney on Fox News Sunday were “offensive.”
Mary Cheney’s pitch to help Freedom Indiana seems to echo a sentiment expressed by Poe in her Facebook post that gay couples and their families should feel protected regardless of their state of residence.
“Speaking out against HJR-6 isn’t a matter of politics,” Mary Cheney said in her Freedom Indiana e-mail. “It’s about family. It’s about everyone feeling welcome in the state they call home.”
Indiana’s House Joint Resolution 6 first passed the state’s General Assembly in 2011. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, a Republican, and other lawmakers support legislative action that would put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2014.
