When issues hit close to home

Cokie & Steven Roberts

Dick Cheney made an affectionate gesture toward his daughter, Mary, when he admitted recently that she is a lesbian. “People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to,” he said. “Freedom means freedom for everyone.”

But the Republican Party platform adopted last week directly contradicts the vice president’s expression of tolerance. Not only does it support a Constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, it opposes civil unions that would give gays equal rights. So much for “freedom for everyone.”

Cheney’s admission represents a rare but revealing moment in politics, when real life overshadows rigid ideology. How many GOP delegates who whooped through that small-minded plank on homosexuality have gay relatives but are afraid to admit it? How many are gay themselves?

The obvious answer to both questions is “plenty.” But few are willing to defy the party’s thought police. As the convention opened, one Republican congressman, Ed Schrock of Virginia, suddenly ended his re-election campaign after claims surfaced that he was secretly gay.

Even the Cheney family has gone through a learning experience. Four years ago, when Cokie was interviewing Lynne Cheney, the veep’s wife, she asked a question about the Cheneys’ “openly gay” daughter. Mrs. Cheney fiercely objected, insisting that her daughter “has never declared such a thing.”

Since Mary Cheney was working for Coors Brewing Company at the time, as their representative to the gay and lesbian community, it was hard for her parents to stay in denial. But give them credit. In the face of strident right-wing criticism they’ve embraced their daughter and her choices.

Real-life experience has led another revered Republican family, the Reagans, into defying party orthodoxy on another volatile issue, stem cell research. The GOP platform endorses President Bush’s decision to strictly limit federal funding for future research that could help cure a variety of illnesses, from Alzheimer’s to diabetes.

This plank was dictated by religious conservatives who believe that stem cell research — which involves the destruction of human embryos — amounts to murder. But Nancy Reagan knows, firsthand, the human cost of that theological conviction.

After spending many years caring for her husband in the final throes of Alzheimer’s, she went public last spring with an emotional plea for more stem cell research. Like the Cheneys, she could no longer deny reality, even if it clashed with party dogma.

The fanatic pro-gun lobby represents perhaps the ultimate denial of reality in the service of ideology. A ban on assault weapons passed by Congress 10 years ago is about to expire, and while President Bush says he favors continuing the ban, he’s done nothing to back his position.

The ban is not perfect, but people who know the issue best, law-enforcement officials, overwhelmingly support its extension and expansion. Chief William Bratton of the Los Angeles Police Department wrote recently that as “a 28-year veteran of law enforcement, I have seen firsthand the death and destruction that can be brought by military-style assault weapons.”

Jim Brady experienced such destruction directly, too. As Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, he was gravely wounded during an attempt on the president’s life. After a wrenching, incomplete recovery, Brady and his wife became full-time anti-gun activists.
But too often, on too many issues, the sane voices of people like the Bradys get drowned out. Too often, real-life experience is no match for the high priests of ideological orthodoxy.

Cokie and Steven Roberts are syndicated columnists.