Last week's tragic congressional defeat of the bill to defend the family, i.e. amend the constitution to ban gay marriage, makes me think of one of my favorite people ever. Mary Cheney. Mary just "came out" with her memoirs, Now It's My Turn: A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life. Ever the martyr, Mary is doing her part to support an administration that is doing its part to warp The Constitution in the noble name of homophobia. And what is she getting in return? Nothing! Besides a mere advance of one million dollars from Simon and Schuster.

The book reveals a Mary who is so principled, that the president's position on gay marriage gives her "a knot in the pit of my stomach." It must be that debilitating pain from her stomach that prevents Cheney using her role as an out republican to champion the cause of gay rights. The paralyzing knot must be what made her choose to "keep a low profile" i.e. not appear on stage with her dad, and at the same time, run her father's 2004 campaign. Mary's so proud of being "gay," she recalls cussing when Jon Kerry referred to her as a lesbian: "he had used the word 'lesbian,' instead of the more common and politically neutral term 'gay.' " (exactly how self loathing does a lesbian have to be to object to being described as, well, a lesbian?) Shame on you Kerry! How would you like it if someone described you as straight?

Now I have no problems with the gays (see, unlike Kerry, I would never degrade them by using the L Word). Some of my best friends are gay. But I do have trouble believing that Mary Cheney is gay. I don't know what turns people gay, nature or nurture, but whatever it is, if anything could over turn it, it's Dick Cheney's virulence, vitality, and good old fashioned sex appeal. How could a woman turn out gay after being raised by the sexiest, the most charismatic, the most dynamic man ever? I defy any gay woman or straight man to even think about Dick for a few minutes and not at least consider switching teams, or as I like to call it, "pulling a Lieberman." But enough from me. Listen to what these gay comics have to say about gay marriage in this Laughing Liberally video Come see these comics and more Mondays (til August 27th) @ 8PM at the 45th street theater @ 354 West 45th st go to www.laughingliberally.com for tix!

Dear President Bush,

We at Laughing Liberally are so upset we forgot about your birthday last week, especially since you're sooo good about birthdays. Even during Katrina, which we all know really hit you hard, even as you mourned the loss of Trent Lott's porch, you took the time to fly to Arizona and give John McCain a birthday cake. (We were going to get you a brass belt buckle but Stephan Harper beat us to it.) So we decided to make you this video. Enjoy!

P.S. If you're in NYC this summer, totally come check out our shows. And invite Cheney (if he's feeling up to it) because I think he'll really get a kick out of it. And if he wants to bring Mary, we'll make sure none of our gay or lesbian performers go up that night so it's not weird.

In case you've fallen behind on your National Review reading, don't miss a critical review of Laughing Liberally entitled Soap's Up: A crass lefty comedy tour, by David Finnigan. And in case you haven't heard of me, I am "Cute" and "brainy" Katie Halper. As "the lineup's only woman, and only profanity-free comic" I feel it's best for me to respond to the review as I'm afraid that the dirty-mouthed comics of Laughing Liberally would write something along the lines of: "*&^% you!" "What the *&^% are you talking about?" "Are we really supposed to give a &*%$ about offending Ann Coulter?"

I did not, contrary to popular belief, get my liberal feminist panties all up in a bunch upon reading this review. I am brainy enough to know when I've been busted. And I actually agree with the review. I admit, "The whole show was a bit of a crude cliché. All the comics easily fit into MTV-assigned Real World stereotypes: the Arab-American talked about 9/11...." Just like every other half Palestinian-American, half Italian-American-Catholic comic, Dean Obeidallah mentioned 9/11, an event irrelevant to the rest of the population. He should just shut up because nobody cares about 9/11 any more. It's so 2001. Likewise, "the black comic [Shang] was angry.... He praised praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il's fashion sense (`His style is so pimp!'). Shang's dirty mouth and gold chain imprisoned him in black stereotypes." So, Shang, take it from a National Review "brother" who knows: you have nothing to lose but your gold chains. So ditch them and buy yourself some Banana Republic clothes. To clean your mouth, try this replacing pimp with procurer. It sounds just as cool to say "Kim Jong-il's style is--"so procurer."

I, perhaps, am the biggest stereotype of all. "The cute woman was a little brainy." I am guilty of jumping on the cute woman who is a little brainy comic bandwagon. I try so hard not to join the club of female comics who stand up on stage and talk about nothing but Iranian diplomacy and the United States Supreme Court. I wish I could talk about things female comics never talk about like boys, dieting and bikini waxes. But we are all products of our society, and seeing my fellow female comics talk exclusively about Darfur and Plamegate makes it hard for me to tackle the harder issues female comics shy away from.