Mary Cheney Talks About Her New Book and Her Family

In her new memoir, Now It's My Turn (Simon and Schuster/Threshold Editions, 2006), Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, writes that when she told her parents she was gay, the first words out of her father's mouth "were exactly the ones that I wanted to hear: 'You're my daughter, and I love you, and I just want you to be happy.'"

In an interview appearing in the June issue of Vanity Fair, national editor Todd Purdum reports that Mary Cheney tells her story in a voice very much like her father's and that she came out to her parents when she was a junior in high school. On that day, she recalls in the book, she had just broken up with her first girlfriend, skipped school, run a red light, and crashed the family car. Cheney writes that her mother hugged her but then burst into tears, worried that she would face a life of pain and prejudice.

Purdum also interviewed the vice president for the story. When asked whether he thinks gay people are born that way, Dick Cheney scrunched up his mouth, fixed him with a look that said "Nice try," then said, "I'm not going to get into that. Those are deeply personal questions. You can ask."

Mary Cheney tells Purdum that her father "has very little tolerance for bullshit, pardon my French." She also says that one common reaction from people who have read the manuscript of her book is, "'Wow, you guys really have this close-knit, loving family,' and it always strikes me as, 'Yeah, of course we do.' It was very surprising to me that people would think we didn't." (The Advocate)