Liz Cheney has denied claims that she supports gay marriage.
Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney,
announced last month that she will be challenging Wyoming Senator
Mike Enzi in the Republican primary. Dick Cheney has previously said
that he supports the marriage of his daughter Mary Cheney, who is
openly gay.
“I am strongly pro-life and I am not pro-gay marriage,” Cheney
said in a statement posted on her website. “I believe the issue of
marriage must be decided by the states, and by the people in the
states, not by judges and not even by legislators, but by the people
themselves.”
Cheney cited a “push poll” in which pollsters asked, “Are
you aware that Liz Cheney supports abortion and aggressively promotes
gay marriage?”
“I call on Senator Enzi to denounce this poll and tell the
National Republican Senatorial Committee, or anyone else promoting
untruths on his behalf, to stop,” Cheney said in her statement.
Enzi spokesman Coy Knobel took
exception to the suggestion in an email: Enzi “would never
support a push-poll, or tolerate anyone working for him who conducted
one. For Liz Cheney to assert otherwise, without any proof
whatsoever, shows more about her campaign than Mike Enzi's.”
Christian conservative Bryan Fischer, spokesman for the American
Family Association (AFA), has previously asserted that Cheney is too
pro-gay.
“In 2009, she inartfully dodged two attempts to press her to
declare her position on sodomy-based marriage, which in the end means
just one thing: she's for it,” Fischer wrote last month.
(Related: Liz
Cheney cannot be “a patriot” because she's pro-gay, Bryan Fischer
says.)