President Joe Biden is honoring former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) with one of the nation’s highest honors, the Presidential Citizens Medal.
According to past White House statements, the tribute is given to individuals “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.” The award is considered the second-highest civilian tribute the U.S. government can give.
The Biden administration announced that Cheney, along with 19 other individuals, will receive the award on Thursday, describing those being honored as being “bonded by their common decency and commitment to serving others.”
“The country is better because of their dedication and sacrifice,” the press release from the White House added.
Cheney — who was one of only a handful of Republicans to vote in favor of impeaching former President Donald Trump and who was just one of two GOP lawmakers to serve on the January 6 committee — is receiving the Presidential Citizens Medal for “rais[ing] her voice — and reach[ing] across the aisle — to defend our Nation and the ideals we stand for,” the White House said.
Cheney has a troubling history, however, when it comes to defending human rights. Up until 2021, she was a fierce opponent of marriage equality, for example, and earned “zero” grades from the Human Rights Campaign for her anti-LGBTQ views every year before changing her stance.
Her opposition to same-sex marriage may cause friction with some of her fellow recipients of the Presidential Citizens Medal, contradicting the Biden administration’s claim that the recipients of the award this year are somehow bonded by the same ideals. Indeed, one recipient of the award is Mary Bonauto, an LGBTQ advocate and lawyer who argued before the Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that resulted in marriage equality becoming the legal standard across the country.
In an interview in 2021, Cheney, whose sister Mary Cheney is a lesbian, admitted she was on the wrong side of the issue during the years she opposed marriage equality.
While she may have shifted her stance on same-sex marriage, she has yet to reconcile her objectionable views on a host of other matters, including her support for the use of torture as an interrogation method — a process that research has shown for many years to be an ineffective means to obtain information.
Because of her support for torture — as well as her bigotry against Muslims, her warhawk attitudes, and her spreading baseless birtherism conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama — the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for “sanitizing” Cheney’s record as she campaigned with Harris during the presidential election in opposition to Trump.
Cheney’s support for Harris and her opposition to Trump “does not wash away Rep. Cheney’s support for crimes like torture,” read a statement from CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell.
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