Roll Your Own 

Which came first, the Cheneys or the egg? 

Where was Mary Cheney, her partner Heather Poe and their toddler son Samuel David Cheney for the White House Easter Egg Roll? HRC—the Human Rights Campaign—famously put Mary on a milk carton years ago because of her absence from the human rights campaign. Now we walk on eggshells around the Cheney house. Why? Because the Cheneys roll their own family members instead of the egg.  

So after milk cartons and egg crates, in the spirit and tradition of homos dissing by dairy, I posit that by the time little Samuel reaches his terrible twos, the cataclysmic eight years his grandfather brought the country will finally be over. And maybe, just maybe, if a democrat occupies 1600 Pennsylvania in spring of ‘09, those Runaway Republican brides can step out of their log cabin and show up to rock and roll. They better wear protective outer garments. Sometimes eggs can turn rotten if you let them sit for eight years while you complicity make lives difficult for gay people while your father makes war. 

The White House Easter Egg Roll began in 1874 during the Rutherford B. Hayes adminstration. His Vice President, William Wheeler didn’t have a lesbian daughter and given the times, we wouldn’t have known if he did. But we live in these times. And the Cheney’s have a Mary. But, the haze of homophobia that’s hung over that famous lawn for 134 years won’t soon lift if the Cheneys have a say-so. And that’s a sad and somber fact when you think his family could make a difference in our everyday lives. His grandson should be rolling with the rest of the rug rats. But somewhere in unwritten but unmistakeable invisible Republican ink is a “Keep Off the Lawn” sign that Mary knows all too well she must abide. So when the all-American kids assembled with a huge dumb bunny on the lawn (That would be W. There was also a goofily dressed rabbit—one we later learned was the White House counsel in Peter Rabbit drag) But Samuel David Cheney wasn’t among the kids. SDC was MIA. 

The homosexual history of the incredible edible egg roll goes back to 2006 when gay families had the audacity of hope that lifting the visibility of gay families would make a difference. Donning then their gay apparel—rainbow leis—they were snubbed by the President and his librarian Missus. She must have passed by that spine of the book Loving Someone Gay. And thus, neither she nor her mother in law Bar ever grew a spine to talk sense to their respective Bushes about the homos around the ‘hood. 

So, since the incredibly visible egg roll didn’t go over so well, our community returned—sans ring around the collars and just blended—sans the VP’s daughter.  

Dick was not having fun. He was abroad. You see, this Easter, Father Knows Least was traveling to many of the dangerous matchbox countries upon which we’ve thrown gasoline with a double cowboy testosterone twist. He toured all the countries where he claimed we’d be greeted as liberators. He was protected like a Fort Knox on wheels. Asked by a journalist if he was concerned that American public opinion was 2/3rds against the war in Iraq, without hesitation, Cheney replied “So?” It was hard to watch the vaunted VP on replay after replay getting his trademark arrogant American attitude and completely dismissing the nearly 200,000,000 American people who want us out of Iraq. 

So Mary shouldn’t take it personally. He rolls service members too! He rolls them right into Iraq without armor or any good reason. He rolls them under false pretense, knowing full well that the only WMD he’ll find is a Woman to Marry his Daughter—Heather Poe.  

One has to wonder what would have happened in the happier times. You remember them. They lasted about 43 minutes in 1992, when Bill Clinton lifted the ban on gays in the military. If someone pointed out that four out of five joint chiefs were vehemently opposed, and the religious right was up in arms, what if our man Bubba had just said “So?”  

But in the injustice of injustices, Father Knows Least can lie us into an illegal war and then look over his shoulder at 4,000+ caskets and say “So?” He pays no penalty. 

You have to love his caveat that the American people get their voices heard once every four years. OK, DICK…let’s review. The majority of the American people sat horrified in 2000 while W.’s brother the governor and Katherine Harris lopped off and castrated Florida, the state that’s often compared on a U.S. map to the male member. Then, a very sub prime Supreme Court backed them. Except for the screaming of hundreds of thousands of castrated democrats, OUR VOICES WERE NOT HEARD.  

But bringing this full circle. Mary was an oh-so-willing foot soldier during every ugly homophobic step that Karl Rove barked in 2000 and 2004. The only thing that will ever greet her in gay circles are rotten eggs. And when Dick asks why his daughter was treated this way, I for one will stand back and say “So?”