By: D’Anne Witkowski*/Special to TRT—
One of the anti-gay right’s favorite arguments is that the gays are actually the intolerant ones. It’s a pretty laughable premise, actually. When it is proposed that LGBT people shouldn’t be protected from workplace discrimination, that same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to get married, that transgender folks should be “put in camps,” that gays should be stoned to death, LGBT people and their allies understandably protest. And then we are accused of being intolerant of our persecutors’ religious or moral beliefs.
Right-wing broadcaster Les Kinsolving has an especially insulting take on “tolerance” in a guest column posted on World Net Daily on Dec. 2. Now, WND, for the uninitiated, is a rabbit hole of hate and lies for and by right-wing luminaries. The hot subject on WND right now is Nelson Mandela, and how he was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Person.
Kinsolving’s column, however, focused on Mary Cheney and what an intolerant dyke she is.
Kinsolving writes wistfully, “There was once a day in this nation when lesbians and others with alternate sexual orientations were comparatively mute.”
Something tells me that if Kinsolving could get his hands on a time machine he would take it back to 1969 to stop the Stonewall Riots.
Kinsolving continues, “There has developed a militancy that may well know no bounds, and that has torn apart the family of the former vice president of the United States.”
Mary Cheney, as we all know, is a lesbian. Liz Cheney, her sister, is a candidate for the U.S. Senate. And Liz “does not believe in same-sex marriage.” Which is, I should point out, a stupid thing to say since same-sex marriage is an actual thing. The same goes for people who say, “I don’t believe in organized religion” because, duh, organized religion is real. So you’re either saying you don’t think it exists or what you really mean is that you don’t practice it or like it or whatever.
For Liz’s stance on “same-sex marriage,” Kinsolving writes, “[S]he has been publicly denounced by her militant lesbian sister, Mary Cheney, and Mary’s similarly militant lesbian mate, Heather Poe.”
Poor Dick Cheney and his family torn apart by lesbian militants. Makes you wonder why terrible things happen to terrible people. But I digress.
Kinsolving reports that the Cheney sisters aren’t speaking and Mary is holding out until Liz changes her tune.
He then quotes Mary as saying, “Liz’s position is to treat my family as second-class citizens. That’s not a position I can be ‘lovingly tolerant’ toward.”
Kinsolving writes, “This really begs a question: How would lesbian Mary expect her sister to regard her orientation if she were polyandrous (female polygamy), a pedophile, incestuous or necrophiliac?”
Um, no, actually it does not beg that question. At all. Not only is equating lesbianism with polygamy, pedophilia, and necrophilia insulting, it’s a clear attempt to dehumanize Mary Cheney and Heather Poe and to excuse Liz Cheney’s shitty treatment of her family for her own political gain.
In Kinsolving’s world, Mary is the intolerant person in this equation because she’s calling out her sister for being an asshole instead of letting Liz slap her in the face and responding, “Thank you sister, may I have another?” I say Hail Mary for calling bullshit when she sees it.
*D’Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She’s a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world she reviews rock ‘n’ roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister.
