Alan Keyes has demonstrated in the last three days his knack for digging a shallow hole deeper and deeper. I just love this characterization of his actions yesterday:
After days of criticism that he had not addressed the Illinois delegates, Keyes finally made his speech Wednesday morning, hijacking the podium from DuPage County Board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom, who had only asked for a round of applause for Keyes. Realizing Keyes intended to speak, Schillerstrom admonished him, futilely, to "Please make it very brief."Of course, a man as steeped in logic as Keyes must be asked logical follow-up questions:
Building up to his trademark high-decibel fever pitch, Keyes shouted, "We shall deal with the challenge that is being mounted today to the family structure throughout our country: Gay marriage activists who are demanding that we should take marriage off the foundation of procreation, child rearing, responsibility to the future, that is the true heart of marriage and place it on a basis of selfishness, pleasure-seeking and self-fulfillment."
After his eight-minute speech, Keyes was asked if heterosexual couples who don't or can't have children are hedonists.Haunted by the possibility of a child? Now, we all know that I would be haunted by the possibility of a child, but Alan Keyes is running under the banner of the "Think of the children!" shrieking party--you know, the party that says gay marriage would send the wrong message to America's youth. And the possibility of having one of those children haunts Keyes? Interesting choice of words.
"The heterosexual relationship is haunted by the possibility of the child, which means you have to commit yourself somewhere to your head to the possibility of a lifelong commitment that involves not only selfish pleasure but sometimes sacrifice."
Speaking of words, Keyes also used his moment in the spotlight to teach the origin of his new favorite word, hedonism:
"In a homosexual relationship, there is nothing implied except the self-fulfillment, contentment and satisfaction of the parties involved in the relationship," said Keyes, who holds a Ph.D from Harvard University. "That means it is a self-centered, self-fulfilling, selfish relationship that seeks to use the organs intended for procreation for purposes of pleasure. The word pleasure in Greek is hedone and we get the word hedonism from that word."Newsflash, Alan: Everyone I know seeks to use the organs intended for procreation for purposes of pleasure. If you think sex is creepy and weird, just come out and say so. I'm sure that will endear you to the masses.
And by the way, gay marriage as an issue is all about committing yourself somewhere in your head to the possibility of a lifelong commitment that will sometimes involve sacrifice. It's two people who want nothing more than to say, "For better or worse, from today until the end of my life, I will love and care for you," and to have the same benefits available to them as are available to everyone else as they carry out that vow. If Alan Keyes thinks a marriage, or any relationship that resembles marriage, is based only on selfish pleasure unless it involves children, I'd (a) like to see how his marriage works, (b) question whether that view is in the mainstream, and (c) hope that he gets his head examined soon.
2 comments:
You can think of the linked article as a matter of acknowledging the source of the quotes if you like. In this case, you'd learn nothing more by clicking on it. I try to digest the important points for you and then add my commentary; I hope that works.
In the case of other articles, like Saletan's stuff this week, I'm quoting to tempt you into reading more, and hope you will. But because I know a lot of people don't click on any of the links, and because in a year the links won't function but the posts will still be in the archives, I've taken to trying to make the posts stand on their own, and that means a lot of quoting. I'm trying to make the site more useful to the people who read it and to accomodate the ways in which they read it--and to save people the time and trouble of going to another site if they barely have time to read mine.
Keyes holds the type of attitude towards sexual relationships that just makes my skin crawl. Outdated, not willing to acknowledge that pleasurable events occur during... well... sex! I'm willing to bet he, like many of my relatives, views such acts as sinful - and that the conception of a child is the only way to justify that act... the sexual act itself becomes a necessary evil to get the child. It's all guilt, guilt guilt, guilt, guilt! And it may work in the South, but I'm not sure it'll help Keyes in Illinois.
James
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