Dick Cheney on Gay Rights

October 5, 2000:

Q. Should a male who loves
a male and a female who loves a female have all -- all! the
constitutional rights enjoyed by every American citizen?

Cheney: The fact of the matter
is we live in a free society, and freedom means freedom for everybody.
We don't get to choose, and shouldn't be able to choose and say, "You
get to live free, but you don't." And I think that means that people
should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to
enter into. It's really no one else's business in terms of trying to
regulate or prohibit behavior in that regard.

The next step, then, of course, is the question you ask of
whether or not there ought to be some kind of official sanction, if
you will, of the relationship, or if these relationships should be
treated the same way a conventional marriage is. That's a tougher
problem. That's not a slam dunk.

I think the fact of the matter, of course, is that matter is
regulated by the states. I think different states are likely to come
to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there
should necessarily be a federal policy in this area.

I try to be open-minded about it as much as I can, and tolerant
of those relationships. And like Joe, I also wrestle with the extent
to which there ought to be legal sanction of those relationships. I
think we ought to do everything we can to tolerate and accommodate
whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into.

Every
time the issue of gay marriage or gay rights comes up, the
self-respecting Democrat should be sure to throw in a, "Well, I think
Dick Cheney put it best..."

Posted by flow Frazao on December 20, 2003 at 05:46 PM | Permalink