How is one of these things not like the other?

I meant to write about this yesterday, but I got swamped at work.

I know that this knocked the wind out of a lot of people, myself included. I mean, we all knew that Dick Cheney is no Bible-thumper and that he and his wife have quietly supported gay rights for a long time, no doubt for the same reason that the Cheneys do anything--self-interest. Cheney's daughter is a lesbian and therefore opposing gay rights is opposing his daughter. Cheney is an old-school conservative, which is to say that he doesn't see why he needs phony religious props to justify his power grabs. Therefore he's free to reject the obviously delusional use of "love the sinner, not the sin" to justify doing hateful things to gays and lesbians.

But the timing of his speech, which got a lot of play in the news, is suspicious to say the least. His speech drew the attention of pro-gay rights voters and voters that are iffy about gay marriage but definitely against amending the Constitution to enshrine bigotry, and it drew their attention right off the fact that the Republican party quietly (meaning publicized it only to their fundie base) added the anti-gay amendment to the Constitution.

Don't admire Dick Cheney for breaking ranks, since that's not what he was doing. A lot of potential Republican voters are socially liberal to one degree or another. In fact, the vast majority of Republican voters are uncomfortable with the Bible-thumping stuff. Just because one is on the side of the rich in the class wars doesn't make one on the side of false piety in the culture wars. In fact, libertarians like to play up their stance against vice laws to attract new recruits. And an amendment against gay marriage is a vice law, whether some of them like to admit it or not. And the anti-federalists are uncomfortable with all this amendment talk. And the ordinary, everyday, Fox-watching, war-supporting voter may like the God talk but doesn't go to church and watches girl-on-girl porn probably doesn't support gay marriage (except for those with gay or lesbian family members) but really doesn't want to open the door to having the fundies examining every corner of everyone's sex life. And they aren't stupid and they know that if the fundies get the bone thrown of the gay marriage amendment then they will continue to push for federal control of everyone's sex lives. Goodbye girl-on-girl porn!

Dick Cheney was seen as a strength on the ticket from the beginning because he comforted the voters who didn't want to be in a party built around fundie Christianity. Cheney's position as second in command made it clear that Bible-thumping wasn't a requirement to be a Republican.

So, as much as we'd like to think that this was a signal of Cheney's human side, that he loves his daughter more than power, the truth is much more pathetic. This was the Republicans telling people what they want to hear. Mainstream voters got the message that the gay marriage thing is not going to go far because men like Cheney will block it. The fundie Christians also got to hear what they wanted to hear, that the party was going to push for the amendment. If there was more support from "moderate" Republicans for this gay marriage amendment, I have no doubt Cheney would have sold his daughter down the river to pander to them.