The Drudge Report (available on the Internets) has been privy to a yet-to-be-published article on Vice President Dick Cheney’s family from Vanity Fair:

In her new memoir, “Now It’s My Turn,” Mary 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.’”

“…Unfortunately, however, it is in my political interests to crush the hopes of all your kind.”

Vanity Fair 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 a day when, after breaking up with her first girlfriend, she skipped school, ran 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…

Riiiggght, Mary. That’s why she was crying. She wasn’t dying inside at the humiliating prospect of facing her Republican friends when they learned that her daughter had chosen to be gay. No, I’m sure it was all about you.

[Mary] 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.”

I’m surprised you’re surprised, Mary. Your parents have a predilection for homophobia that normal loving parents would not have. Your mother has been a shrill opponent of gay rights. Your father would not be vice president today without the votes of homophobes in Ohio who turned out in droves to vote for a ban on gay marriage that was placed on the ballot in a cynical move by your father’s supporters to gin up support among the bigots and yahoos.

It is surprising they don’t hate you, Mary. It’s even more surprising that you don’t hate them.