Dick Cheney—the vice president under Republican President George W. Bush who was behind the Iraq War but who also supported lesbian-activist daughter Mary Cheney—has died at age 84, The Advocate reported.
“His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed,” a family statement read. It also stated that he passed away due to complications of pneumonia as well as cardiac and vascular disease.
In 2004, Dick said that states should decide on marriage equality as Bush supported a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage.“Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it’s an issue our family is very familiar with,” he said, according to NBC News. “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.”
While always a staunch conservative, CNN noted that the former vice president was a critic of Donald Trump and voted for Kamala Harris last year.“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in an ad for his other daughter, former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, during her failed re-election campaign in 2022.