Today's Washington Post includes the guest list for yesterday's lunch at the White House honoring His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and his new wife, Camilla Parker-Bowles (Windsor, I assume). Among the distinguished guests were
Ms. Mary Cheney
Ms. Heather Poe (Guest)
According to the Post, Ms. Poe is Ms. Cheney's companion. So the question is this: Does this represent a recognition by the White House that there is nothing wrong after all in what most of us would call a "marriage-like" relationship between two men or two women (at least if one of them is the Vice President's daughter?)? And if that is the case, as I suspect it is--George Bush has never been personally homophobic, so far as I know, independent of the political stances he has taken on the gay marriage issue--what does his "base," including some of the people on this list who have expressed concern about the threat posed to marriage by any recognition even of civil unions, think of this display of "compassionate conservatism"? I assume, incidentally, that a White House lunch attended by, among others, the Chief Justice of the United States, Condoleza Rice, Tom Brokaw, Tom Watson (the golfer), Donald Rumsfeld, and other such luminaries, i! s a "public event" and thus it does not count as an "invasion of privacy" to note who was honored with an invitation and what symbol such an invitatinomight be said to convey.
sandy
