Wyoming Republican Senate candidate Liz Cheney, whose sister Mary Cheney is gay and married her longtime partner in Washington D.C. last year, says that she does not support same-sex marriage.
“I am strongly pro-life and I am not pro-gay marriage,” she said in a statement. “I believe the issue of marriage must be decided by the states, and by the people in the states, not by judges and not even by legislators, but by the people themselves.”
The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney was responding to a reported “push poll” that led voters to believe that she “aggressively promotes gay marriage.” She is running against incumbent Republican Mike Enzi for the state’s Senate seat.
Mary Cheney married partner Heather Poe in Washington DC -- where same-sex marriage is legal -- last June. The couple has two children.
In a Facebook status posted Friday, Mary Cheney wrote "For the record, I love my sister, but she is dead wrong on the issue of marriage," the New York Times reported.
"It’s not something to be decided by a show of hands,” Mary Cheney added of same sex marriage rights, inviting friends to "like and share" the message.
The sisters' father, the former vice president, said in 2009 that he believes that marriage should be regulated on a state-by-state basis but that “freedom means freedom for everyone.”
“As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family,” he said at the time. “I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish.”