A television ad in Wyoming attacks Liz
Cheney for her supposed support for gay marriage.
Cheney, the daughter of former vice
president Dick Cheney, is challenging Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi in
the upcoming Republican primary.
After a male announcer describes cabler
MSNBC as “the go-to network for Barack Obama and Washington's
liberal elites,” a clip of Liz Cheney in a 2009 appearance on the
network is played.
“In Wyoming, Cheney campaigns as a
conservative,” the narrator states in the ad. “In Washington,
she appears on MSNBC to campaign against the marriage amendment and
support government benefits for gay couples.” (The video is
embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)
However, Cheney announced her
opposition to gay nuptials in August.
“I am strongly pro-life and I am not
pro-gay marriage,” Liz 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.”
The statement provoked a response from
her younger sister, Mary Cheney, who is gay and married: “For the
record, I love my sister. But she is dead wrong on the marriage
issue.”
A spokeswoman for the American
Principles Fund, which produced the ad, defended the spot in comments
to The Los Angeles Times.
“It's very clear she doesn't support
a constitutional amendment” limiting marriage to heterosexual
couples, Sanders
said. “There's not one thing she would do to protect
traditional marriage at the federal level.”