I've mentioned my reactionary old man, Atilla the Republican, on many occasions. And I've mentioned on a couple of occasions that one of my sisters came out about 25 years ago. I think I have a fair bit of insight into the situation involving the Cheneys and gay rights.

I'm sure that Atilla spent more than a few sleepless nights trying to integrate the new reality of his daughter into his reactionary worldview. But he did eventually, and his relationship with his lesbian daughter is close and in no way different from his relationship with his straight daughter.

I think that Mary very probably really is the apple of Dick Cheney's eye, and he's as devoted to her as any father. He's supporting gay marriage not because he believes in it, but for his daughter's sake. You can trust a conservative to be loyal to family and let ideology pound sand if there's a conflict. I suppose you could call that, technically, hypocrisy. But to me it's an understandable and rather human hypocrisy, and it's perhaps the one thing I can forgive Dick Cheney.

I think it's inaccurate to say that conservatives lack compassion. Not completely. But what distinguishes liberals and conservatives is the relative scope of their compassion. We liberals feel like we're a member of the great big human family, and so we're more disposed to extend compassion to strangers and to people who are very different from us. But for conservatives, there's a distinct boundary, usually defined by blood relation, plus a few close friends and business allies. Inside that boundary, conservatives can be as warm and fuzzy as any other person. But outside that boundary, in the vast world of "others", are all the scary inscrutable and malevolent monsters under the bed. Because anything you can't understand is a threat.

There's a lot that conservatives don't understand.