My puzzlement...

Okay, I understand - sorta, kinda - why Mary Cheney is a Republican. She's rich enough that she can afford to put alienating her father, possibly damaging his career, over her immediate needs. She and Heather Poe aren't making minimum wage or anything, and they can afford to be "just waiting for state and federal law to catch up with us," as she told Primetime Live earlier this year. That her father's party regards her as subhuman is something she's wealthy enough, and connected enough, to be able to ignore. I think I get that.

What I do not get is why she still lives in Virginia. As Ruth Marcus puts it in today's Washington Post, that "waiting for state and federal law to catch up" will take a long time, especially if Cheney's party has anything to say about it federally, or locally. Especially in Virginia:

As a resident of Virginia, which does not permit a gay parent to adopt, Poe will have no legal connection to the child that she and Cheney clearly intend to have and raise together. If the couple were to split up, Poe would have no legal right to see the child.

And sure, Cheney also told Primetime Live that, in her mind, "Heather and I already are married. We have built a home and a life together. I hope I get to spend the rest of my life with her." So maybe they won't split up, but Cheney could get hit by a bus. Poe would not get the child.

Marcus adds:

Virginia's newly adopted and expansively drafted constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage casts doubt on the ability of Cheney and Poe to write binding medical directives and wills. Without any legal protection, state or federal, against job discrimination -- the Bush administration opposes extending anti-discrimination laws to cover sexual orientation -- Mary Cheney could be fired simply because she is gay.

I can see no reason any gay person who can afford to move still lives in Virginia. Mary Cheney and Heather Poe could live in Maryland easily enough. And if enough people like them left The Old Dominion, maybe - just maybe, I'm not totally naïve - there'd be some thought taken as to why.

But then Mary Cheney and Heather Poe would have to actually care about people not related to them. People they might be, if not for the power of Daddy.