Dick Cheney Supports Gay Marriage on 'The View'

Dick Cheney spoke out in favor of same-sex marriage on Tuesday in an appearance on The View.

Host Barbara Walters asked the former vice president's wife, Lynne Cheney, whether she supported same-sex marriage. The couple's daughter, Mary, is gay, and Lynne Cheney responded, I think that whatever Mary and Heather decide to do is up to Mary and Heather.

Walters, pushing for a more definitive answer, prompted Cheney, So you're not against gay marriage, and she responded, That's right.

When co-host Joy Behar asked Dick Cheney whether he agreed with his wife, he said, I don't have any problem with it. Later, he added, I think freedom means freedom for everybody, and you ought to have the right to make whatever choice you want to make with respect to your own personal situation.

This is not the first time the Cheneys have expressed support for same-sex marriage, although in the past, Dick Cheney has tended to defer to states-rights arguments rather than endorsing marriage equality himself. He reiterated on Tuesday that he believed it should be up to each state to decide whether to legalize same-sex marriage.

When Cheney was vice president under President George W. Bush, Bush had promoted a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman, and Cheney stayed largely out of the spotlight on the issue. When asked, though, he said at a campaign rally in 2004, Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue our family is very familiar with. With the respect to the question of relationships, my general view is freedom means freedom for everyone. ... People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.