www.dailyherald.com/special/election/ele_story.asp?intID=38232320
Election Links Thursday, September 02, 2004 Q and A with Keyes on gay comment controversy Republican US Senate candidate Alan Keyes caused a storm of controversy at his partys national convention in New York Wednesday by reiterating comments that Vice President Dick Cheneys daughter Mary engages in selfish hedonism if shes a practicing lesbian. The following is a transcript of Keyes fielding questions from Illinois reporters Wednesday morning: Q Is Mary Cheney a selfish hedonist? A The question that was asked of me was my position on gay marriage. I think the challenge is not the challenge of homosexuality, but the challenge of maintaining a proper understanding of marriage. The heart of marriage is the commitment to procreation and child-rearing. If we accept the idea that it is possible for two people who are (words unclear) cannot procreate to marry, then we have removed procreation from the essential meaning of marriage. That of course would destroy the underlying moral culture that is required to sustain the family. And in order to understand that, you then have to look at the nature of that homosexual relationship. And its just objectively the case, that in a homosexual relationship, there is nothing implied except the self-fulfillment, contentment and satisfaction of the parties involved in the relationship. That means that it is a self-centered, self-fulfilling, selfish relationship that seeks to use the organs intended for procreation for purposes of pleasure. So if you say that homosexuality is predicated on selfish hedonism, you mean of course that it is the pursuit of pleasure through the use of the organs intended for procreation in order to satisfy selfish and self-centered purposes. I was then asked by a reporter in a polemical way, and heres what I was talking about yesterday, its perfectly easy to understand what I just said and it answers the question about my position on gay marriage. Then as a warrior for the other side, I was asked the question as well, does this mean youre saying that the Cheneys daughter, who is lesbian, is a selfish hedonist. And I said that I had clearly stated my views, and that the objective facts could lead to a conclusion. And that means as insofar as individuals are in fact engaging in homosexual relations and they correspond to the archetype of homosexuality, then we should look it right in the eye to give self-centered, selfish, self-oriented pursuit of pleasure, and that is different. The heterosexual relationship, and this is acknowledged in the homosexual literature and everything else, the heterosexual relationship is haunted by the possibility of the child and that possibility means what? That possibility means that you have to commit yourself somewhere in your head to the possibility of a lifelong commitment that involves not only selfish pleasure but sometimes sacrifice and burdensome grief. These are the things that we must discuss if we are to have a rational discussion of how we preserve the institution of marriage. Trying to turn this issue into an issue of personality, is again as I have often said about the media, an effort to engage in polemics. But as I said to someone the other day, if my own daughter were a homosexual or a lesbian, I would love my daughter but I would tell my daughter that she was in sin, OK? And I would love her and pray for her and try to open her heart to the truth of Gods intention for her life. Q Many Republican leaders here today said that they think you need to stop talking about divisive social issues and start talking about real issues like jobs and the economy and health care. A And I am sad, and I think one of the reasons that perhaps we are facing a situation in Illinois where the key elements of the Republican Partys platform are not properly understood is that there has not been before a leader and a leadership willing to stand before the people and in a common-sense way talk about these issues. The people of Missouri just rejected gay marriage by an overwhelming majority. And we all know, dont we, that that has happened in every state where the issue has been put to the people. Why is this common sense judgment of the American people well-founded? It is well-founded because of the very arguments I have just made. We cannot as a society embrace an understanding of marriage that misleads people into believing that it is about selfish pleasures people, when marriage is in fact about the commitment... Im making a statement, Im getting to the main point of the statement, and someone tries to walk over that main point to make sure the public doesnt hear it. I will give you plenty of time to ask your questions but you should give me the courtesy of letting me finish my answer. I will offer a common sense understanding of what justifies the opinion of the overwhelming majority of people in America. And that opinion is we should not embrace the idea of gay marriage because it is inconsistent with the culture of self-sacrifice and the responsibility to the future, not to ourselves, that is at the end of the day at the heart of married life. I think the overwhelming majority of people in Illinois are right. I think that a minority of judges and others trying dictatorially to impose their view on our society are wrong and I will lend all of my intelligence and ability to justify the common sense of the people. Q You made the argument persuasively about gay marriage and the institutional problems that are going on. Why get into sexual organs and pleasure and that, you get into an inflammatory area where on the day Cheney is being renominated, youre essentially trashing his daughter? You are again doing what I think media people like to do. You have intervened in order to try to personalize the discussion of an issue that I did not personalize. The people asking me the question did so, and if thats inappropriate, blame the media, dont blame me. Second, you cannot understand this issue if you are not able to look at and discuss the nature of the homosexual relationship. To pretend that were supposed to talk about this and not talk about the nature of that relationship is again an effort to prejudice the discussion in order to make people feel ashamed of their common sense. Q If your position is consistent then, heterosexual couples who dont want to procreate and just do have intercourse for pleasure but use birth control to prevent pregnancy, are they being selfish also? A The interesting thing is that I phrase my statement quite carefully. When I said that you cannot include in the definition of marriage those who in principle cannot procreate, the in principle is very important because it means that try as you might, we cannot imagine that Jack and Jim are going to procreate, that Mary and Jill are going to procreate. That means that the two of them cannot become one flesh in a new person. And that being the case, you cannot change in principle the understanding of marriage. The incidental fact that some people who are heterosexuals do not wish to procreate, that others, through incidental fact of others through their own health, might not be able to procreate, this does not change what in principle marriage is about. But if you admit those who cant in principle not procreate, then you have changed the understanding of marriage in principle. In other words, people respond to this question in a common sense way and they know what they believe, but I can provide them with a reasonable and rational justification for what they believe. Q The original question that I asked earlier was do you believe Mary Cheney is a selfish hedonist? A In order for me to answer that question, I would have to know with personal certainty what is going on in the private life of the Cheneys daughter. Because I have said that homosexual relationships involve, and I think its quite clear logically, self-oriented, self-oriented, selfish pursuit of pleasure, that is hedonism, through the use of organs intended for procreation. Do I know whether or not the daughter of the Cheneys is engaging in such acts? Do I look to somebody like God that I can look into peoples lives and their...
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