Cheney sisters feud over gay marriage
Thanksgiving at the Cheney house might be a bit uncomfortable this year.
Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, said on "Fox News Sunday" that she opposes same-sex marriage. Her younger sister, Mary Cheney — a gay married woman — was at home with her wife watching the show.
"I love Mary very much. I love her family very much," Liz Cheney, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Wyoming, told Fox News' Chris Wallace. "This is just an issue in which we disagree."
Mary Cheney took to Facebook to respond.
“Liz — this isn’t just an issue on which we disagree," Mary Cheney wrote. "You’re just wrong — and on the wrong side of history.”
The sisters haven't spoken in months.
Mary Cheney’s wife, Heather Poe, also responded through Facebook.
"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," Poe wrote. "To have her now say she doesn't support our right to marry is offensive to say the least."
Poe also took a thinly veiled swipe at Liz Cheney's relocation from northern Virginia to Wyoming to seek public office — a move that has led some to call her a carpetbagger.
“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,” she wrote. “Yes, Liz, in fifteen states and the District of Columbia you are my sister-in-law.”
Liz Cheney is seeking to upset Wyoming Republican Sen. Mike Enzi in a primary in August that has drawn national intererest. Dick Cheney supports his daughter's candidacy, but he doesn't hold her "traditional marriage" view. In 2012, the former vice president lobbied the Maryland state legislature to legalize gay marriage. Lynne Cheney, Liz and Mary's mother, supports same-sex marriage, too.
"This is an issue we have dealt with privately for many years," Lynne and Dick Cheney said in a joint statement released on Monday, "and we are pained to see it become public. Since it has, one thing should be clear. Liz has always believed in the traditional definition of marriage. She has also always treated her sister and her sister's family with love and respect, exactly as she should have done. 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."
According to The New York Times, the Cheneys will be celebrating Thanksgiving at Mary and Heather's home in Virginia. Mary Cheney told the paper she assumed Liz Cheney would be staying in Wyoming.
