July 2000 USA Today article BURIES the Mary Cheney issue

[WilliamPitt]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/conv/037.htm

Republicans to face gay, lesbian issues
By Larry Copeland, USA TODAY
07/31/00

PHILADELPHIA — Gay Republican activists say Texas Gov. George W. Bush's outreach efforts and the prime-time convention speech of openly gay Arizona congressman Jim Kolbe could help the GOP alter its image as hostile to gay and lesbian voters.

Also, the party's expected embrace of former defense secretary Dick Cheney's openly lesbian daughter could help convince voters that Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is genuine.

The daughters of Bush's vice presidential pick arrived here with their parents Sunday. A close friend said that Mary Cheney, 31, will have a role beyond the convention and will be constantly at her father's side during campaign trips.

"It's a very positive thing for this country to see, for the first time in history, someone on a national ticket with an openly gay child," said Kevin Ivers, spokesman for the Log Cabin Republicans, a national organization of 11,000 gay voters that Bush met with during the primaries. "It shows that it's something they know very personally about. It's an issue they have a special sensitivity about."

Still, the GOP faces staunch opposition to progress on gay issues from its far-right wing. This faction restored to the party's platform anti-gay language that Bush had removed. Over the weekend, one of the right's best-known voices, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, created a minor furor by calling Cheney's daughter "errant" in his newsletter. Both gay and mainstream Republicans dismissed Falwell's remarks. "I don't think Dick Cheney is going to allow the fringe to affect his family, " Ivers said.

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