Most political junkies tend to have a few politicians and pundits from the opposing side whom they like, respect or enjoy to some degree.
Some on my list: Richard Nixon, G. Gordon Liddy, Ben Stein, Pat Buchanan, Andrew Sullivan, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Richard Lugar, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Bob Dole, the Governator and, of course, Alan Keyes.
Keyes was first endeared to the progressive community when, at his daughter's urging, during the 2000 primaries he dove into Michael Moore's traveling mosh pit, thus earning the endorsement of Moore's show "The Awful Truth."
I've always said that, despite of Keyes' eloquently-stated, far-right positions, he's the best kind of Republican -- the kind that never wins elections.
His most recent embarrassment in Illinois at the hands of rising democratic all-star Sen. Barack Obama is only the latest example.
During that campaign, Keyes received criticism for one of those controversial statements he's always making. According to MSNBC, having described homosexuality as "selfish hedonism," an interviewer asked Keyes if Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, Mary Cheney, would be a "selfish hedonist." Keyes replied, "Of course she is. That goes by definition."
A comment he made in that interview is more startling now, given recent revelations: "if my daughter were a lesbian, I'd look at her and say, 'That is a relationship that is based on selfish hedonism.' I would also tell my daughter that it's a sin, and she needs to pray to the Lord God to help her deal with that sin."
According to the Washington Post, his 19-year-old daughter Maya Keyes said, "It was kind of strange that he said it like a hypothetical. It was really kind of unpleasant."
Yes, similar to Cheney, whose daughter he attacked, Keyes also has a lesbian daughter.
Only instead of embracing her and taking a less hard-lined approach to homosexuality, as Cheney has, Keyes has all but disowned her. According to the Post, Maya claims that her parents "threw her out of their house, refused to pay her college tuition and stopped speaking to her."
Maya acknowledges that part of the reason her parents refused to pay for her tuition is because it would essentially be monetary support toward her future career as an activist.
In startling contrast to that, Maya worked on her father's campaign even though she strongly disagreed with his politics. When asked if she had wanted her father to lose she said, "Should you really be asking that question? I mean, I suppose there is a conflict, but I'm not sure I wanted him to lose. I disagree with nearly all his views, but he's very honest and has a lot of integrity."
For some reason, I feel an especially deep sympathy for Maya. I think it's partly due to the fact that she's part of our generation -- she's one of us. She was born in 1985. She has a blog -- a Xanga with a lavender background and butterflies that looks like it could belong to anybody else from Generation-Y.
More than sympathy, though, I possess tremendous respect for her because of her support for her father. Family members should support one another, even when they disagree. Love must transcend politics.
Maya understands that. We can only pray that eventually her parents will too and their family can be healed.
Online-exclusive extra:
Ironically, this is not the first time in Keyes' life in which someone who is gay has played an important part in his life. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Keyes conducted on Sept. 9, 1999, on C-SPAN:
Q: Along the way, greatest influences among your teachers?
A: I think that, without any doubt, the greatest influence among my teachers was Allan Bloom, who was a professor at Cornell when I started there, went to the University of Toronto. I think ended his life and career at the University of Chicago, was well known as the author of a book called "The Closing of the American Mind," which enjoyed some popularity a few years ago. Without a doubt, Allan Bloom was, in terms of my academic and intellectual formation, the most important teacher I had.
Q: Can you explain why?
A: I think because, in a way that ended up, really, capturing both my interest and serious thought, he understood the moral foundations of politics -- at least the importance of those moral foundations. And instead of approaching a political life and the questions that we are involved with in politics and morality, as is often popular these days, as if it is all somehow a consequence of material relationships, he took seriously what had been the view of societies and eras before our own, which saw a self-subsistent basis for moral things, and therefore for political life and which took that seriously, going all the way back to ancient times with Plato and Aristotle and others. And I just felt, and still deeply believe, that there is more truth in that than in those approaches that try to reduce human things to some kind of sum of the material forces that operate upon us as material beings.
Allan Bloom, a Hoosier born in Indianapolis in 1930, was a disciple of Leo Strauss, one of the more controversial philosophers of the 20th century, whose ideas influenced today's neoconservative movement. Bloom actually taught many of today's high-profile neocons, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is an example. Bloom died in 1992, and the true cause of his death was not revealed until several years later: AIDS. Yes, Keyes' mentor Bloom was a promiscuous, atheistic, nihilistic gay man.
To the best of my knowledge, I have yet to find a quote from Keyes acknowledging the personal life of his chief philosophical influence.
For an excellent essay on this subject, visit the blog of Prof. Jon Rowe at http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2004/08/alan-keyes-allan-blooms-gentleman-most.html.
Write to David at swimminginbrokenglass@gmail.com
Visit http://www.bsu.edu/web/dmswindle
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