A Child Born of Vice

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


 mary_cheney_partner_web.gif

Mary Cheney, the vice president’s 37-year-old lesbian daughter, is pregnant. In Virginia. Last month, Virginia passed an absurdly stringent amendment [PDF] barring domestic partnership benefits—ostensibly for same-sex couples, but the amendment was worded so vigorously that many expect it will affect straight couples as well.

Virginia Republicans strongly supported the measure. Although the younger Cheney called it “a gross affront to gays and lesbians everywhere,” in the past she has campaigned for her father, Darth Vader of the Republican Storm Trooper army.

So where does the amendment leave Heather Poe, Mary’s partner of 15 years? Nowhere, it seems. Virginia’s notoriously conservative courts are leading the charge to deny same-sex partners any rights to the children they help raise. Jennifer Chrisler of Family Pride, the largest gay-lesbian family advocacy group in the country, said that unless the couple moves to a “less restrictive” state, “Heather will never be able to have a legal relationship with her child.”

If the couple were to split up, Heather would be especially screwed because her credentials can’t compete with Mary’s. Cheney has a high-powered corporate job at AOL. Heather is a “former park ranger,” who is now renovating the couple’s Great Falls, Virginia, home. If history is any guide, the V.P. wouldn’t hesitate to use his friendships with judges to get what he wants. Cheney appears to be supportive of Mary and Heather’s relationship, but he has, according to Chrisler, “been complicit in the largest full-scale attack on the LGBT community in modern history.” It seems safe to say he’d want Mary to have full custody.

For now, the Washington Post reports that the vice president is “looking forward with eager anticipation” to Mary’s baby’s birth. But can you imagine Dick “Dick” Cheney smiling?

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate