Mary Cheney strikes again: GOP afraid to hold anti-gay marriage amendment mark-up in light of day

Well, for a party that claims to be so proud of its religious right base, the Republicans sure don't act like it.

In the same week that Laura Bush comes out and criticizes Republicans who, like the religious right, would use legislative gay-bashing as an election issue, the Senate Republicans show signs that they aren't too happy with the religious right either.

Republicans held a committee meeting today on their effort to amend the US Constitution in order to make gays second-class citizens. But you wouldn't have known it if you were on the Hill. At the last minute, the Republicans moved the meeting to a much smaller room that was so hidden away and so small that there was barely enough room for the Senators themselves, let alone the public or the media.

So basically the Republicans are trying to have their cake and eat it too. Hold their gay-bashing meetings to appease the fringe extremists who now control their party, while at the same time hiding their efforts from the media and the public since so they're so damn embarrassed by the actual agenda the religious right is forcing them to push.

Mary strikes again.

While Mary Cheney still needs to get a clue or two about what it means to be gay in America for people who don't have a Cheney at the end of their name, her open-lesbianism has had one positive impact. It's chastened the Republicans so they're now that much more embarrassed to bash gays publicly. We saw that impact earlier this week on Laura Bush, and now we're seeing it in Republican members of the Senate.

No one wants to be seen publicly pushing the Bash Mary Amendment to the constitution, so they do it behind closed doors. And this is hardly the first time the GOP has tried to hide their crazy Christian aunt in the attic. At some point, you'd think the religious right would get fed up with being treated like lepers. Not that they aren't lepers, they most certainly are and deserve to be treated as such. But that doesn't mean they gotta like it.

Man it's fun watching the Republican party melt down.