News
Cheney family feud reflects GOP division on marriage
Republicans ‘do not walk in lockstep’ on issue
The Cheney family is engaged in a public dispute on same-sex marriage (Photo public domain).
The public spat within the Cheney family over the issue of same-sex marriage has prompted many to suggest the flap is a microcosm of what’s happening in the Republican Party at large over LGBT rights.
An explosion of media coverage ensued this week over lesbian Mary Cheney taking to her Facebook page to publicly rebuke her sister, U.S. Senate candidate Liz Cheney, for stating her opposition to marriage equality on Fox News Sunday. “Liz – this isn’t just an issue on which we disagree – you’re just wrong – and on the wrong side of history,” Mary Cheney wrote.
In a statement provided to media outlets, former Vice President Richard Cheney, a supporter of same-sex marriage, along with his wife Lynne Cheney, articulated a sense of pain over the controversy.
“This is an issue we have dealt with privately for many years, and we are pained to see it become public,” Dick and Lynne Cheney said in the joint statement. “Liz has always believed in the traditional definition of marriage. She has also always treated her sister and her sister’s family with love and respect.”
Gregory Angelo, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, said the Cheney dispute demonstrates Republicans “do not walk in lockstep” on the issue of marriage equality.
“I think it shows there’s a lot more discussion that needs to happen both within the Republican Party and at dinner tables around the country in order to get more Republicans on the right side of this issue,” Angelo said.
Richard Socarides, a gay New York-based advocate and Democratic activist, also said the Cheney family conflict reflects the division among Republicans on the marriage issue.
“It’s uncanny how it exactly mirrors the divisions within the larger Republican Party,” Socarides said. “Cross generational agreement exists but there are still some geographic and ideological differences. It shows also that the GOP still has a long, long way to go and that most LGBTs are going to be more at home with the Democrats.”
The growing support for marriage equality among the GOP can be seen by three GOP senators coming out for marriage equality this year: Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
And support for same-sex marriage is growing among younger Republicans, although the party as a whole remains opposed to gay nuptials. According to a March 2013 analysis by Republican pollster Jan van Lohuizen and Democratic pollster Joel Benenson, a bare majority of 51 percent of Republicans under the age of 30 support the legalization of same-sex marriage in their state.
But the party’s official position on marriage equality is still opposed. In April, the Republican National Committee approved by voice-vote a package of resolutions that included a measure reaffirming the party’s opposition to same-sex marriage.
Liz Mair, a Republican political strategist who favors LGBT inclusion in the GOP, said Liz Cheney’s advisers are mistaken if they’re telling their candidate that opposing same-sex marriage will make her more favorable to Republican voters because that strategy hasn’t worked for other GOP candidates.
“They tend to want to adopt or play up very conservative stances on issues that aren’t top-five or even top-10 for many primary voters at all, and think that will give them a toehold from which they can claw their way into contention,” Mair said. “It rarely works, and we’ve seen this whether we’re talking about hardline rhetoric on immigration or tacking right, noticeably, on so-called ‘gay issues.'”
Liz Cheney may have wanted to use the marriage issue to gain traction against her opponent, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.). At the end of October, Enzi was ahead of Cheney 69 percent to 17 percent in a survey among likely primary voters conducted by Bob Wickers of The Wickers Group.
Mair said the more interesting question is whether Enzi, the incumbent, would be able to survive a primary challenge if he supported same-sex marriage.
“We’re not going to get to give that theory a test run, because Enzi does not support same-sex marriage, but the fact that it seems possible suggests what all the polling suggests,” Mair said. “This is an issue that is waning in importance for GOP primary voters and to the extent that it remains important, it’s because the number of self-identified Republicans who support the freedom to marry is increasing steadily, noticeably and consistently.”
The rebuke from Mary Cheney, who married her partner Heather Poe last year in D.C., also represents an evolution on her part after enduring criticism for not taking a strong enough position in urging her party to support same-sex marriage.
Mary Cheney in 2002 joined the advisory board for the now-defunct Republican Unity Coalition, a gay/straight alliance dedicated to making sexual orientation a ‘non-issue’ for the GOP.
But Mary Cheney didn’t stay with the organization. In 2003, the group criticized then-Sen. Rick Santorum for his now infamous comments comparing homosexuality to bigamy, incest and adultery when discussing sodomy laws.
During a 2003 appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Republican strategist and Cheney adviser Mary Matalin in turn rebuked the RUC for going after Santorum, saying the organization was “parroting” the Democratic interpretation of what Santorum said. About a week later, Mary Cheney resigned from the RUC, deferring media inquires to Matalin.
Even as Mary Cheney has criticized her sister for opposing same-sex marriage, she recently contributed $2,500 to the Romney presidential campaign despite his support for a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
In 2004, John Aravosis, a gay political activist, started a campaign called “Dear Mary” to encourage Mary Cheney to speak out against a Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as she helped her father with the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.
Aravosis, now editor of AMERICAblog, said he thinks Mary Cheney’s criticism of her sister is real and welcome, but still somewhat conflicted.
“Mary is running into a basic contradiction that gay Republicans face: Anti-gay bigots often don’t discriminate against us privately, but when in the public policy sphere they’re more than happy to,” Aravosis said. “Mary is finally coming to terms with that fact, and that’s great. But she needs to stop supporting anti-gay candidates overall, then I think people will accept her support unquestioningly.”
The situation also brings into question how the marriage issue will play out once the presidential primaries begin in 2016. What will be the fallout for potential candidates like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who opposes same-sex marriage, but withdrew an appeal before the Supreme Court on a court ruling in favor of marriage equality?
Mair said she doesn’t think Christie’s chances of securing the Republican presidential nomination are at all diminished by his decision to back down in the marriage equality fight.
“With some pockets of the GOP primary electorate, especially in a state like New Hampshire, they may be increased,” Mair said. “But like Liz Cheney and Mike Enzi, I would be highly surprised if Christie’s prospects in a primary hinged on his stance on same-sex marriage.”
Bigger issues, Mair said, would be his brashness, his stance on issues like guns and foreign policy, and whether he could hold his own against Hillary Clinton in the general election.
Angelo noted that Christie hasn’t made any personal statements regarding his feelings on marriage equality following his decision to withdraw the appeal to speak to whether they’ve changed.
“If anything, Chris Christie certainly has a strong independent streak and has not allowed himself to be defined by any one single issue for the entirety of his term of governor of New Jersey,” Angelo said. “I imagine that will likely be the case with the civil marriage issue as well.”
Virginia
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate
The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.
The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.
The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”
“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.
Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.
The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”
The White House
As house Democrats release Epstein photos, Garcia continues to demand DOJ transparency
Blade this week sat down with gay House Oversight Committee ranking member
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released new photos from Jeffrey Epstein’s email and computer records, including images highlighting the relationship between President Donald Trump and the convicted sex offender.
Epstein, a wealthy financier, was found guilty of procuring a child for prostitution and sex trafficking, serving a 13-month prison sentence in 2008. At the time of his death in prison under mysterious circumstances, he was facing charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors.
Among those pictured in Epstein’s digital files are Trump, former President Bill Clinton, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, actor and director Woody Allen, economist Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, entrepreneurs Richard Branson and Bill Gates, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
One photo shows Trump alongside Epstein and a woman at a Victoria’s Secret party in New York in 1997. American media outlets have published the image, while Getty Images identified the woman as model Ingrid Seynhaeve.
Oversight Committee Democrats are reviewing the full set of photos and plan to release additional images to the public in the coming days and weeks, emphasizing their commitment to protecting survivors’ identities.
With just a week left for the Justice Department to publish all files related to Epstein following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires the Justice Department to release most records connected to Epstein investigations, the Washington Blade sat down with U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the Oversight Committee to discuss the current push the release of more documents.
Garcia highlighted the committee’s commitment to transparency and accountability.
“We’ve said anything that we get we’re going to put out. We don’t care who is in the files … if you’ve harmed women and girls, then we’ve got to hold you accountable.”
He noted ongoing questions surrounding Trump’s relationship with Epstein, given their long history and the apparent break in friendship once Trump assumed public office.
“There’s been a lot of questions about … Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. They were best friends for 10 years … met women there and girls.”
Prior to Trump’s presidency, it was widely reported that the two were friends who visited each other’s properties regularly. Additional reporting shows they socialized frequently throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, attending parties at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and Epstein’s residences. Flight logs from an associate’s trial indicate Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet multiple times, and Epstein claimed Trump first had sex with his future wife, Melania Knauss, aboard the jet.
“We’ve provided evidence … [that leads to] questions about what the relationship was like between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.”
Garcia stressed the need for answers regarding the White House’s role in withholding information, questioning the sudden change in attitude toward releasing the files given Trump’s campaign promises.
“Why is the White House trying to cover this up? So if he’s not covering for himself … he’s covering up for his rich friends,” Garcia said. “Why the cover up? Who are you hiding for? I think that’s the question.”
He confirmed that Trump is definitively in the Epstein files, though the extent remains unknown, but will be uncovered soon.
“We know that Trump’s in them. Yeah, he’s been told. We know that Trump’s in them in some way. As far as the extent of it … we don’t know.”
Garcia emphasized accountability for all powerful figures implicated, regardless of financial status, political party, or personal connections.
“All these powerful men that are walking around right now … after abusing, in some cases, 14‑ and 15‑year‑old girls, they have to be held accountable,” he said. “There has to be justice for those survivors and the American public deserves the truth about who was involved in that.”
He added that while he is the ranking member, he will ensure the oversight committee will use all available political tools, including subpoenas — potentially even for the president.
“We want to subpoena anyone that we can … everyone’s kind of on the table.”
He also emphasized accountability for all powerful figures implicated, regardless of financial status, political party, or relationship with the president.
“For me, they’re about justice and doing the right thing,” Garcia said. “This is about women who … were girls and children when they were being abused, trafficked, in some cases, raped. And these women deserve justice.”
“The survivors are strong.”
Deputy White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson issued a statement regarding the release the photos, echoing previous comments from Republicans on the timing and framing of the photos by the Oversight Committee.
“Once again, House Democrats are selectively releasing cherry-picked photos with random redactions to try and create a false narrative,” Jackson said.
“The Democrat hoax against President Trump has been repeatedly debunked and the Trump administration has done more for Epstein’s victims than Democrats ever have by repeatedly calling for transparency, releasing thousands of pages of documents, and calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends,”
In a press release on Friday, Garcia called for immediate DOJ action:
“It is time to end this White House cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful friends. These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all the files, NOW.”
(Photo courtesy of the U.S. House Oversight Committee)
District of Columbia
Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival
Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.
“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.
The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.
“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.
Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.
The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.
Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7th Street, N.W.
“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.
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