American member of noted family, the sixth grandchild of Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne Cheney, welcomed their sixth grandchild, Samuel David Cheney, Wednesday, May 23, 2007. The boy's parents are Cheney's daughter Mary and her partner, Heather Poe.
The child's pending birth was eagerly anticipated and much discussed in the news given Vice President Cheney's conservative views on marriage and family and his daughter's openly gay relationship with Heather Poe. The Vice President and his wife refused to discuss their views on their daughter's lifestyle choices and posed lovingly with their newest grandson. Mary Cheney was 38 at the time of the child's birth . She and Poe had been in a relationship for about 15 years and refused to discuss how the pregnancy came about. The father, if known, was unnamed. Mary Cheney in an interview with Glamor magazine was quoted as saying, "This is a baby. This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue. It is my child." She then made another point that, according to her, every piece of "remotely responsible research" had demonstrated "no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents."
