The American Taliban and their media mouthpieces have spent the last decade and a half attacking gay and lesbian couples. In the last few years they’ve broadened their attack to gay and lesbian parents.

According to the American Taliban, same-sex marriage is a threat to civilization, as evidenced by the recent collapse of Canadian civilization. And gay parents are a threat to our own children because, well, because they say so. And while all studies of gay parents show the opposite to be true—gay parents are just as fit as straight parents—that’s because all the studies are biased—except for those infused with anti-gay bias. (As we’ve seen with creationism, global warming, and cigarettes, the only way to correct for bias is to begin with a conclusion and work backward from there.)

But there’s something about Mary—Mary Cheney, the dyke daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney. It’s no secret that Mary’s been in a gay relationship for 15 years; she worked on her father’s campaign, and Mary and her partner, Heather Poe, joined George W. Bush on the stage for his victory speech in 2004. (That’s the picture above—and, hey, who let those dykes get so close to that little girl? Good lord, they may recruit her!) And now Mary is about to have a baby. So what is the American Taliban saying now? Not much. Because for Mary Cheney they’ll do something they absolutely refuse to do for the rest of American gays and lesbians: maintain a “respectful” silence. Speaking for the gay bashers at the National Review, Kathryn Jean-Lopez says…

Unless Mary Cheney asks to be part of a political debate about this, there is no need to have a public discussion about her life…. I could be wrong but the media/commentators seem to be making it—Mary Cheney’s pregnancy—a political issue.

Well, goodness gracious! Imagine that! Someone out there is attempting to make a political issue out of some lesbian’s private life! Why, the nerve of some people!

Excuse me while I puke all over my keyboard.

Jean-Lopez and her ilk had made the private lives of American gays and lesbians into one of the top two political issues of our times—right up there with Iraq—and in the process have made America a laughingstock all over the world. We’ve got real problems in Iraq (all my fault, I realize) and at home, and what is our political class obsessed with? Whether my boyfriend spits or swallows. For her part, Jean-Lopez has always been fond of politicians who strive to politicize the private lives of Americans like Mary Cheney—particularly the late, great Rick Santorum. Jean-Lopez’s tongue spent election season wedged in Santorum’s asscrack; she predicted days before the vote that Santorum would be reelected. Rick lost by 18 points. (Full disclosure/bragging rights: On election day, Jean-Lopez also wrote a column attacking widdle me for being so awfully mean to her BFF Rick Santorum.)

Andrew Sullivan has this to say to Jean-Lopez this morning…

This is absurd. Lopez aggressively favors all efforts to strip the Cheney grandchild of two mothers. Lopez has politicized this family’s personal life, and attacked it viciously. Lopez supported the Virginia state constitutional amendment that will mean that the Cheney grandchild will only ever have one secure parent. Lopez favors adding this terrible insecurity to the Cheney-Poe child’s life. And she wants it not to be personal. Sorry, but it is personal.

National Review institutionally believes that what Cheney’s family is doing is evil. Some have the integrity to keep saying so even when their actual impact on an actual human being thay actually care about is at stake. Lopez, Podhoretz, and Goldberg do not have that much integrity. Remember: David Frum once threatened to make Mary Cheney a criminal for her committed relationship of a decade and a half. Remember also: These people wanted to declare this family illegitimate in the very Constitution of the United States, declaring that one group of Americans do not belong in their own country. And now they find themselves demonizing and marginalizing and discriminating against one of their own. Stupid poetic justice, as Homer Simpson would say.

So what do they do? They are forced to be silent, or to blame others for bringing it up. Their double standards and intellectual dishonesty are now up there in neon lights. Where is Stanley “Slippery Slope” Kurtz? Cat got your tongue? Thousands of words to demonize abstract others. Sudden silence when he has to cast out one of his own. These people do not even have the courage of their own prejudices.