Alan Keyes on Civil Rights American Independent nominee for President; 2004 Republican challenger for IL Senate

Sub-sections under Civil Rights:
• Affirmative Action
• Gay Marriage
• Other issues under Civil Rights

Federal Marriage Amendment to define the natural family

‘Separation of church & state‘ misinterprets Constitution

The free exercise of religion means nothing if, in connection with the ordinary events and circumstances of life, individuals are forbidden to act upon their religious faith. I would do everything in my power, through public discourse and persuasion, by proposing legislation, and by careful scrutiny of the candidates for judicial appointments, to turn the tide against constitutional rulings that undermine religious freedom.

Source: Campaign website, www.alankeyes.com, “Issues” Oct 1, 2007

Gay marriage invalid because gay couples cannot reproduce

KEYES: Marriage is based upon heterosexual relations because they are connected to procreation. Where procreation is impossible, marriage is irrelevant. And that is the civic explanation against homosexual marriage. It is irrelevant. And the idea that one should have legislation that is regulating private friendships for no reason is a degrading of those friendships.

OBAMA: Well, to answer the original question, I would love that child and seek to support them. I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman but I detest the bashing and vilifying of gays and lesbians. Most gays and lesbians are seeking basic recognition of their rights so they’re not discriminated against in employment or renting a house, so they can see their partner in a hospital. These are rights for everybody, not just some people.

The path to your freedom is standing firm for God’s will

Protect religion from the state, but not vice versa

Right to acknowledge God is the foundation of all our rights

Public display of the Ten Commandments is a state’s right

The belief that you can’t legislate morality is nonsensical

We live under the tyranny of the federal judges

Leaders must face racial bigotry, not ignore it

BUSH: I was asked, do I support their policy of no interracial dating. I said of course not. I talked about how the principles of conservatism can lift the spirit of America. How we can improve peoples lives, that’s what I talked about.

KEYES: In your speech, you said nothing about the and racial bigotry that had to be dealt with. On an if-asked basis, these questions are not enough. What I did was look folks in the eye and tell them. I’m willing to lose every vote over the issue of standing with integrity against religious and racial bigotry.

Our rights come from God, not from the Constitution

Ten Commandments & prayer should be in schools

Conducting gov’t in Spanish assaults our linguistic unity

BUSH: No es la verdad.

KEYES: Es la verdad, se¤or.

BUSH: One, I expressed concern about it-I don’t want this town’s business being conducted in Spanish, it ought to be conducted in English. Secondly, I’ve talked to [Texas’] attorney general to make sure that this town was conforming to all the laws of Texas.
I’m for what’s called English Plus. English is the great language that provides freedom and opportunity. Plus we respect other people’s heritage in this country.

No separation of church & state; fight uniform irreligion

Q: Are you for or against the separation of church and state? A: You are trying to force me to speak in terms that are not relevant to American life. The Declaration of Independence states. [that] the source of our rights is the creator God. You can tell me, if you like, that that’s a religious conviction. I know that it is the American creed.. I won’t give up the Declaration.

We cannot cure a past injustice with another injustice

Preferential affirmative action patronizes blacks & women

I am opposed to quotas. I am against the idea that you should be deciding on the basis of race what positions people should have in the workplace.

Address Black community with solid Republican principles

A: I think it is a little unfair to assume that our absent colleagues didn’t show up tonight because they were sending a message of some negative kind to the Black community, for the very obvious reason that they didn’t show up at the Values Voters Debate, either. Do you know what these two debates do have in common though? I was included. I’ve been barred from the debate in Michigan, for reasons best known to the party there. And what do you want to make of that? The other guys will show up there. Now, that suggests that they may or may not be afraid of all Black people, but there seems to be at least one Black person they’re afraid of. And I think the reason--the reason that they have this fear is pretty evident. They don’t believe that it’s possible to address a significant portion of the Black community on the basis of solid Republican principles, and I do.

Preferential affirmative action is patronizing

Moreover, preferential affirmative action patronizes American blacks, women, and others by presuming that they cannot succeed on their own. Preferential affirmative action does not advance civil rights in this country. It is merely another government patronage program that secures money and jobs for the few people who benefit from it, and breeds resentment in the many who do not. It divides us as a people, and draws attention away from the moral and family breakdown that is the chief cause of the despair and misery in which too many of our fellow citizens struggle to live decently.

Preferential affirmative action is patronizing.

Black heritage comes from survival in America, not Africa

When will we stop looking for glorious empires along the Niger or the Nile, and begin to truly appreciate the more lasting monument of values, endurance, and faith that black Americans built along the Potomac and the Mississippi? That moral legacy, not race or skin color or any other material thing, is the strong foundation of the black American identity. Isn’t it time we began to reclaim and build upon it?

Affirmative action turns back the clock

That is one of the reasons I oppose this whole Affirmative Action business. We are not supposed to be judged based on what our ancestors did or suffered. We are supposed to be judged as individuals, based on what we are able to achieve.

And when you tell me that somebody’s skin color or gender is going to determine their prospects in this world, that is turning the clock back hundreds of years. Back to a time before this nation declared that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator; not by their ancestry, not by their skin color, not by their gender, not by Congress, not by the Constitution, and not by the laws.

Wrong to treat sexual behavior like race

If we equate sexual orientation and race, we are saying that sexual behavior is beyond the individual’s control and moral will. We cannot embrace such an understanding of civil rights without denying the human moral capacity.

Marriage exists for the sake of procreation

Because, that was God’s plan. Marriage exists for the sake o procreation, for the commitment made, man and woman, to God’s will as it is then exemplified in the child when the two become one flesh, and that is also a commitment of responsibility and self-sacrifice for the sake of respecting God’s will for the future.

That is the serious understanding of marriage. If we were to adopt a view that just says, “Well, sex is pleasure for pleasure’s sake,” and we can actually base marriage on that understanding of human sexuality, we would be lying to ourselves.

Massachusetts gay marriage required judges legislating

The Massachusetts equivalent of the supreme court of the state decided that the marriage laws of the state were wrong, and that the state must allow people of the same sex to get married. Now, if you look at the decision [Goodridge vs. D.P.H.], they didn’t take it upon themselves to simply say, “That’s it. The laws must change.” You know why? Because they realized that somebody might stand up and say, “Excuse me, y’all are legislating, and you don’t have the legislative power.”

So, instead of doing it openly, they just said that the legislature had to rewrite the law. They then went on very carefully to note that their decision did not make any change in the law.

Defend the natural family against the gay lobby

A: I think that, first and foremost, we have to make sure that we defend the natural family, that we pass the amendment that will be required in order to make sure that the strategy of the gay lobby doesn’t result in the destruction of traditional marriage.

We need a constitutional amendment to stop gay marriage

A: First of all, I think it’s quite evident that we need a constitutional amendment, from what we see going on right now, with folks who have gotten themselves supposedly “married” as gay couples, going into other states demanding that these marriages be recognized using things like the Full Faith and Credit Clause to require that every state in the Union recognize the action that has been taken by this legislature--or in fact, in Massachusetts, arbitrarily by judges, and then by Mitt Romney, who refused to acknowledge what the court had actually said, which was not that you had to perform such marriages, but that the law should be revised. He is single handedly responsible for bringing them on.

Marriage can’t be understood apart from procreation

A: An individual who is impotent, or another who is infertile, does not change the definition of marriage in principle, because between a man and a woman in principle, procreation is always possible, and it is that possibility which gave rise to the institution of marriage in the first place as a matter of law. But when it is impossible in principle, as between two males or two females, it’s impossible in principle. If you say that that’s a marriage, you are saying marriage can be understood, in principle, apart from procreation. You have changed its definition in such a way as, in fact, to destroy the necessity for the institution, since the only reason it has existed in human societies and civilizations was to regulate, from a social point of view, the obligations and responsibilities attendant upon procreation.

Gay sex is selfish hedonism

A: Actually, that was a situation in which I described what’s involved in gay sexual relations, and described it quite objectively-sexual relations with no other objective than that the parties involved should derive pleasure from this use of the organs intended for sexual purposes. That is selfish, that is oriented towards oneself; hedonism, which is the pursuit of pleasure.

Q: REID: But even feeling that way, do you feel it was wrong to say it in this context?

A: I was then asked by the reporters, “Would that apply to Lynne Cheney’s daughter, as a lesbian?” And I said, insofar as she engages in that kind of sexual relation, of course it applies. It is, by definition, applied to all those people who are engaging in sexual relations of that kind.

Gay marriage destroys fundamental moral institutions

HIV workshop violates parents who think gay is immoral

Keyes warned the crowd, which interrupted him several times with loud applause, about how AIDS is sweeping Africa and could do so here -- if the state continues to interfere in what he called “the moral education of our children.”

Signed pledge to reinstitute ban on gays in military

McCAIN: No, I will not. [I agree when] military leaders that you and I respect say that this policy is a good one. I will support the present policy.

Oppose gay agenda in military & marriage laws

Warns that Supreme Court has advanced gay marriage agenda

“Hate crime” laws will be used to punish anti-gay opinions

Gay rights aren’t like racial rights, because it’s behavior

If we accept this kind of reasoning, why should we expect to draw the line at sexual passion? If we’re going to have special legal protections for homosexuals, shouldn’t everybody else’s uncontrollable sexual orientations be protected? Shouldn’t adulterers, pedophiles, rapists, and other sorts of sexual aberrants be eligible for the same benefits? If we were to accept this convoluted logic we would be left with the concept of a human person which accepts strict external regimentation: we are basically people out of control.