Cheney’s daughter pregnant

WASHINGTON – Mary Cheney, the vice president’s openly gay daughter, is pregnant. She and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, are “ecstatic” about the baby, due in late spring, said a source close to the couple.

It’s a baby boom for grandparents Dick and Lynne Cheney: Their older daughter, Elizabeth, went on leave as deputy assistant secretary of state before having her fifth child in July. “The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth grandchild,” spokesman Lea Anne McBride said Tuesday night.

Mary Cheney, 37, was a key aide to her father during the 2004 re-election campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL. Poe, 45, a former park ranger, is renovating their Great Falls, Va., home.

News of the pregnancy will undoubtedly reignite the debate about gay marriage. During the campaign, Mary Cheney was criticized by gay activists for not being more publicly supportive of same-sex marriage. Her father said people “ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to” but deferred to the president’s policy supporting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages.

Cheney has described her relationship with Poe – whom she took to last year’s White House dinner honoring Prince Charles and Camilla – as a marriage. The two met in 1988 while playing ice hockey and began dating four years later.