Keyes: Anti-gay and Anti-child?

Keyes' gay slam roils GOP

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."

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."

Of course, a man as steeped in logic as Keyes must be asked logical follow-up questions:

After his eight-minute speech, Keyes was asked if heterosexual couples who don't or can't have children are hedonists.

"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."

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.

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.