Virgin Birth

Mary Cheney's pregnant, and I, for one, am very happy for her and Heather Poe. The kid is going to have every advantage (give or take growing up in a house with a warped political philosophy).

Needless to say, the Christianists are all over it. This sort of says it all:

Carrie Gordon Earll, a policy analyst for the conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family, expressed empathy for the Cheney family but depicted the newly announced pregnancy as unwise.

"Just because you can conceive a child outside a one-woman, one-man marriage doesn't mean it's a good idea," said. "Love can't replace a mother and a father."

You can't make this stuff up. I don't understand why anyone would want to.

Here is a really stupid comment by Kevin McCullough at (where else?) Townhall.

It's short, and fairly appalling. (I just took another look at it. It's even more appalling that I had at first thought.) The reasoning, phrasing, support -- where there is any -- are just beyond the pale. He very dramatically asks all the usual questions, without referring to the fact that the answers are a) pretty obvious, and b) none of his business. Then he goes on to perpetrate the lie that "scientific evidence" shows that mommy and daddy are best, when in fact there is no such evidence. Every reputable study indicates just the opposite: two parents are best, but their sex doesn't make a difference.

It's an incredibly self-important piece of drivel. I don't know if McCullough is considered a substantial commentator on the right, but if he is, they're in serious trouble. I mean, the questions are just ignorant ("How did the exclusive sexual union of these two women bring about this conception?" Mmm. . . 1) does he know for a fact that it's exclusive? and 2) Artifical insemination, as it said in the news stories. Duh!), specious ("What does it mean to the supposed "intimacy" that "two people share" which was intended by the Creator to be a function that creates life, to be forced to include a third party?" If he'd bother to read the news, he would have known about the artificial insemination, which doesn't generally include a live-in stud male. Unless, of course, he means the child as the third party, and I think that's the whole point.); here's a bait-snd switch ("Doesn't it make a rather strong statement that biologically speaking, the sexual union these two women share - is in fact, scientifically speaking - inadequate?" Note once again the equivalence of love with "sexual union." The right can't seem to make the distinction. And "scientifically speaking, inadequate"? What the hell does that mean? Science doesn't deal with "adequate" or "inadequate." Them's value judgments.) Let's face it, the "important questions" are a crock.

It's also a vicious piece of wide-open hate mail. Consider that the piece begins with a denial of Mary Cheney's identity: the headline reads "Cheney's Daughter Who Engages in Lesbianism -- Is Pregnant?" Not "Mary Cheney," but "Cheney's daughter." Not "she's a lesbian," but she "engagees in lesbianism." This, of course, as does the post as a whole, has to take into consideration that same-sex relationships can't encompass things like love, mutual support, mutual caring, or any of the "normal" characteristics that result in a 50% heterosexual divorce rate and that it's a choice that you can be cured of. So you start by denying any possibility of human feeling between Cheney and Poe. You have to, otherwise you have no ground to stand on.

The comments are the expected mix of ignorance and bile. (I was going to leave one, just to point out the bullshit about "scientific studies prove," but given the fact that, as I might expect from a publication that favors the police state, they just want too much information to register, I dropped the idea. That's one mailing list I certainly don't want to be on.)

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for this link. I think.