Sat. December 16, 2006
Washington, D.C. -
President George W. Bush says he is happy for Mary Cheney, the openly lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, who announced earlier this month that she and her longtime partner are expecting a baby.
"I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child," Bush said in an interview with People magazine. "And I'm happy for her."
Mary Cheney, 37, and her longtime partner, Heather Poe, are expecting their first child. Cheney was hired last year as an executive for America Online.
Bush was asked about Mary Cheney's pregnancy in light of his previous statements that a child ideally should be raised by in a family headed by a married father and mother.
In a 2005 interview with The New York Times, Bush said: "I believe children can receive love from gay couples but the ideal is -- and studies have shown that the ideal is where a child is raised in a married family with a man and a woman."
White House press secretary Tony Snow told the Associated Press on Friday that Bush has not changed his mind. "But he also believes that every human life is sacred and that every child who comes into this world deserves love," Snow said to the AP. "And he believes that Mary Cheney's child will, in fact, have loving parents."
A number of conservative groups have expressed dismay at Cheney's pregnancy.
"We should not enter into yet another untested and far-reaching social experiment, this one driven by the desires of same-sex couples to bear and raise children," James Dobson, chairman of the Focus on the Family lobbying group, said in a recent commentary published on the organization's Web site.
Written By Troy Espera
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