Jon Rowe has an article up about the revelation that Alan Keyes has a lesbian daughter. I told him the other day that I was probably going to address this at some point, and I fully expected to do what I usually do, which is mock Keyes for his constant public poses of self-righteousness. But now that I'm sitting down to write it, I feel only sadness. I feel sad for Maya Keyes, for being who she is and having the intolerant father that she has. I can't really bring myself to make political hay out of what must be an emotionally traumatic situation for her and it saddens me that she will now be the center of a media feeding frenzy.
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Maya Keyes has finally been disowned by her father, the uber-right Alan Keyes. According to Maya, not only have they thrown her out of the house and refused to pay for her tuition at Brown University, they've also stopped speaking to her. She'll be able to stay with friends, and the Point…
Reading the writings of Christian reconstructionists can be an unsettling activity. Try this on for scary. Would you believe, someone who thinks that Alan Keyes, of all people, doesn't want to impose his religious faith on people enough? Yep, I found one - Andrew Sandlin, director of the National…
Jon Rowe has written an absolute must-read essay on our favorite intrepid campaigner, Alan Keyes, and our favorite nihilist-who-sounds-like-a-fundamentalist philosopher, Allan Bloom. I was not aware until I read it that Keyes was the person that Bloom was referring to in his book The Closing of the…
Jon Rowe has written an absolute must-read essay on our favorite intrepid campaigner, Alan Keyes, and our favorite nihilist-who-sounds-like-a-fundamentalist philosopher, Allan Bloom. I was not aware until I read it that Keyes was the person that Bloom was referring to in his book The Closing of the…
I think everyone's just taken her old man's 50-point defeat for granted, so hopefully she won't have to hear about it too much more.
Another compelling reason for gay marriage: changing your last name to your partner's last name to avoid association with nutball parents.
That's a classy enough peice for me Ed. I think you made all the 'hay' you could hope to make by your own example. Bigotry of any kind is so alien to you, so puzzling, so unjust, and so utterly incomprehensible, that you hesitate to even magrinally impact someone you don't know by discussing their particulars, even to advance the ideal of equal rights. Admirable in the extreme my friend.
Oh, I don't think I'd go that far calling me noble. I've just always felt sorry for the children of politicians. I can't imagine how much it would suck to grow up in the public eye. That's why I've never taken any shots at the Bush twins, or at Chelsea Clinton. Being a teenager is hard enough. Being a lesbian teenager would be ten times harder. Being a lesbian teenager with Alan Keyes for a father? Wow. I can't even imagine it. I think it's certainly fair game to go after Keyes for his nasty rhetoric about gays, but I think it's a shame that the press is probably going to be all over this girl, trying to get her to say something that will make it even more of a controversy. On her webpage, she talked about the note she got from a reporter saying "if you just wanna talk", which she correctly replied to with sarcasm, like "Yeah, sure, everyone runs to a reporter in difficult times".
I frankly think that Mary Cheney is more fair game than Maya Keyes. She's much older, and involved in the campaign in a real position. I don't feel as bad about the attention she receives. And clearly she and her parents have long ago reconciled their relationship. And by the way, this is in no way a criticism of Jon Rowe's post on the subject either. Jon knows from his own experience how tough it can be for someone in her situation and what he wrote in no way denigrated this young woman or made it more difficult. I was just fully prepared to write a scathing blast at Keyes, and when I sat down to do it I felt more of a resigned sadness than vitriol.
It's even sadder than that, unfortunately....I've been following this story as it's unfolded over the last few days, and the blogs of the various people involved in this have been revealing just how nasty the members of the Religious Reich can be. Maya's girlfriend states that she's been kicked out of her house by her mother more than once since the press started calling, and various blogs hint that Alan Keyes has apparently been threatening to refuse to pay for his daughter's college because of her "behavior".
These poor kids have my heartfelt sympathies. Nineteen is a tough enough age even with loving and supportive families. The pain and fear these girls must be going through...it's one of the saddest things I think I've seen.
And I really wish that some of those mouth breathers out there who think that people "choose" to be gay could share in the sort of torment these kids are being subjected to, both by the press and by their own families. Maybe it would give them the reality check they so desperately need.
In a better world, i could see this situation forcing Alan Keyes to adjust his worldview, but I'm sure that won't happen... amazing / ironic how many gay people are in and around Alan Keyes life, it must drive him nuts.
If he is so foolish as to not pay for her college education, I say we start a fund and pay for it ourselves.
You know...that's not a bad idea Mist. Instead of bitching about it, do something. But I don't know how to set it up if it comes to that. I suppose we could just mail her a money order.