On Monday, Kolbe and Republican strategist Mary Matalin addressed a luncheon held to honor gay Republicans. Guests were divided on the question of how the GOP is handling both Mary Cheney's sexuality, and the larger issue of gay rights.

Birch believes both the Cheney family and the Republican Party are at a crossroads on gay issues. "There are four daughters between two families [the Cheneys and the Bushes] and only one is positioned to be left behind by public policy in the U.S."

Bush's positions on gay issues, Birch argues, have been "negative at worst and muddled at best. If this is going to be an affirmation party," as Bush has been promoting all week, "how [Cheney] is treated will be very important."

Birch and others pointed to the anti-gay language in the platform the GOP adopted this week. Although platform chairman Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson tried to remove the language, he was overruled, and the Bush-Cheney camp was perceived as spending little or no political capital to back him up.

"It's an extraordinarily hostile gesture, reaching back to the dinosaur age," Birch said. "We commend Tommy Thompson for his efforts, but it doesn't bode well for the party if they're trying to usher in an era of compassionate conservatism."

But Carl Schmid, who was part of the "Austin 12" group of gays who met with Bush in Texas in April, defended the Bush campaign's relationship with gays. "He was the first Republican nominee to meet with a gay group. He didn't have to come out with us to meet the press, but he did."

And Rich Tafel, head of the Log Cabin Republicans, doesn't believe Lynne Cheney is trying to closet her lesbian daughter.

"Lynne Cheney," Tafel says, "is very afraid that that will become the story. My sense is that Mary Cheney is going to campaign with her father." Tafel thinks the fact that the GOP nominee has a lesbian daughter is "huge. For over a decade, our opposition has called themselves a 'family values' coalition. Now gays and lesbians have families, too. If [Dick] Cheney loves his lesbian daughter and she loves him back, that will singlehandedly destroy the hateful rhetoric" represented in the platform, Tafel believes.

Christian conservatives, Tafel claims, have been silent about Mary Cheney, which he sees as proof that the Texas governor has "frozen out" some of the right-wing elements of his party. Over the weekend, Jerry Falwell did describe Cheney as "errant" in a newsletter, but so far the ultra-right has been silent on the issue.

But Birch believes the early response to Mary Cheney -- including her mother's nationally televised evasion on ABC -- "are not good signs of where the Republican Party is going." Gays still have a "Mount Everest to climb in the GOP," she contends, adding flatly: "There is no reason for gays to vote for Bush."

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