Not Quite As Gay As The White House Press Room, But Still Pretty Gay
I had been sort of obliquely aware of the story about Alan Keyes' gay daughter. I was surprised when the story first came out (er...) that I didn't have a stronger reaction to it. The Alan Keyes Senate "race" vs. Legislative Rock Star Barack Obama in Illinois was sort of a recurring theme on this blog from birth through Election Day.

OK, that might be a slight misrepresentation... I was a lot more interested in the Alan Keyes crazy than I was in the no-contest contest between himself and Mr.--excuse me, Senator--Obama. As both a Catholic and a huge, huge fan of people who are publicly crazy, I am convinced Alan Keyes was put on this earth specifically to entertain me. We know he wasn't put here to hold elective office, so I think that's the most likely scenario. God didn't want me to bored as I entered my 30s, so he put Alan Keyes here to make me smile from time to time by being a funny, funny Catholic fundamentalist.

So I was as surprised as anyone at my own tepid indifference to the richly ironic story of Mr. Keyes having a daughter as queer as a three-trillion-dollar Social Security bill. Then I hear that in response to his daughter's gayness, Mr. Keyes and his wife followed Jesus' prescription for dealing with sinners by throwing her out of the house and refusing to pay for her Ivy League education. I can't remember which book of the New Testament Jesus did that in... I think it was Matthew. Because we all know Jesus was all about judgment and persecution and ostracization.

Again, Mr. Keyes is Catholic, just like me. Well actually, not really anything like me or any other Catholic I know (and I know a lot of them). What most non-Catholics don't really appreciate is that there are grand pronouncements of what the church is and what it will or will not accept. And then there are the basic interpersonal relationships at the parish level between actual human beings that aren't--can't really be--directed by wide generalities of dogmatic policy. The Church says being gay is wrong (a position I cannot, as a matter of practical course, blindly accept, sorry), but I can't think of a single Catholic who wouldn't be horrified at the idea of shunning a child with acts both petty (the tuition thing) and grand (turning them out of the house).

Besides, I don't know what exactly the program is at those places you send your gay kids to in order to have them turned straight, but I don't think "cutting off their tuition payments" is on the list. I always thought it was more electric shock therapy and heavy doses of good clean hetero porn.

I think the main reason I didn't really care is that Keyes is no longer the freak show he was during election season. Constantly running 70 points behind in a race is already fascinating. Add to that the total hypocrisy of his candidacy--from a man whose one and only public defining characteristic were his precious principles--and it just all tickled that part of my brain usually reserved for Monty Python sketches.

Now that he's a nobody again it's just... well, all the fun is out of it. If I'm going to kick my dog, I'm not going to do it while she's sleeping.

Yesterday however, the Bucket's Ivory Tower Bureau Chief and token Republican Rita did point me toward a link I couldn't entirely ignore. If you're annoyed by today's post, it's entirely her fault.

The link led me to Maya Keyes' Xanga site. Go ahead and look, I'll wait. Back? Good.

OK, I'm not suggesting that she had her Xanga all configured with all the graphics and stuff before she came out, but just in case she did--and especially for the benefit of all parents out there--I would like to point something out: if your daughter has a website/Xanga/blog/whatever that includes pictures of a naked woman with butterfly wings emerging from a cocoon, your daughter is gay. I'm sorry, there just is no other explanation. The only way the symbolism could be more stark would be for her to use the symbols I-M-G-A-Y. It's quite a clue, Scooby Doo.

Mostly I'm writing this as a warning to Maya Keyes, though. I'm a little worried for her well-being. You can cross the hard-core conservative wing of the Republican party in the short term, but eventually they will ask Jesus to give you cancer. It's sort of a win-the-battle-lose-the-war proposition.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 6.8


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 10:57 AM