The Virginian Mary is pregnant!

Mary Cheney, that is (who lives in Virginia). And she didn't, presumably, have sex with a man...because she's a lesbian.

So doesn't that make her kind of a virgin - and thus, the baby kind of immaculately conceived?

It's a miracle!

Well, it would be a miracle, anyway...if Mary's father and his friends would let her marry her lover.

But, as the Center for American Progress reports, "the right wing is already on the attack":

• Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America told reporters the pregnancy was "unconscionable," and that it was "very disappointing that a celebrity couple like this would deliberately bring into the world a child that will never have a father."

• Carrie Gordon Earll of the James Dobson-led Focus on the Family said, "Just because you can conceive a child outside a one-woman, one-man marriage doesn't mean it's a good idea."

• As residents of Virginia, Cheney and her lover will also face discrimination due to state law. According to Equality Virginia, "While there are no specific Virginia laws addressing the custody and adoption rights of gays and lesbians, Virginia courts have routinely discriminated against gays and lesbians by finding that the parent's status as gay or lesbian is not in the 'best interests' of the child." The result, says Jennifer Chrisler of Family Pride, is that Cheney's lover will "have no legal relationship with her child. She can't adopt as a second parent. She won't have her name on the birth certificate." Asked what the couple could do to give Cheney's lover some legal rights as a parent, Chrisler advised: "Move to Maryland."

(Get it? Mary-land?)