The left side of the blogosphere has lit up with news that Alan Keyes, the conservative politician from Maryland, has an active lesbian daughter. By itself, that’s not big news, but what has the bloggers kicking is the revelation that, by coming out of the closet, she got kicked out of the home.
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The bloggers on the Left are furious.
The most popular blog in the world, The Daily Kos, had a meltdown (then again, Kos melts down weekly — an effective shtick leftover from Abbie Hoffman). A few snippets: “Nobody who can do this, to their own child, can pretend that there is any 'love' in this. You have to wonder, after all the garbage about 'family values', about 'God' and 'Jesus' and 'morals', what crawls as thought through the mind of a father who not only fires his own child, but pushes her out the door without the resources to start over.” “This is so ugly… so damned petty and cruel that it makes me spit nails.” “[B]y her very existence as your offspring she'd have been crazy to choose this.”
As a preliminary, it should be understood that, Kos's insinuation aside, the girl will not be destitute. Other bloggers point out that she'll quickly find a job and resources, given her combination as a lesbian and the daughter of a prominent conservative Catholic.
But it's troubling that it appears Keyes has disowned her. It's a harsh response. Was it justified?
That's impossible to say. No writers, including the bloggers who have been quick to condemn, know all the facts. Had she been warned? Was she flaunting it? Did they have other disagreements?
But let's assume the best for both sides. Assume the daughter told Keyes as demurely and respectfully as possible that she is an active lesbian, and assume Keyes evicted her only after reasonably and patiently concluding that she wouldn't change her lifestyle.
Did Keyes act despicably?
Ironically, Kos gives us a good argument that he didn't. According to Kos, “she'd have been crazy to choose this.”
Precisely. “Crazy” can mean a lot of things, but it always entails a situation in which someone isn't thinking clearly. And one of the most common things that clouds clear thinking is passion. It's perhaps best described by the twentieth-century philosopher Josef Pieper, who wrote the following:
Unchaste abandon and self-surrender of the soul to the world of sensuality paralyzes the primordial powers of the moral person: the ability to perceive, in silence, the call of reality…. An unchaste man…is distracted by an unobjective “interest”; his constantly strained will-to-pleasure prevents him from confronting reality with that selfless detachment which alone makes genuine knowledge possible.
Supporting quotes could be culled from a host of other thinkers, including Plato, the Stoics, Augustine, and Aquinas.
Keyes's daughter apparently has a sinful disposition that needs to be resisted. The alcoholic needs to resist drunkenness, the libidinous man lechery, and the greedy man theft. If a person chooses to disregard restraint and indulge his or her passion, what's a parent to do? Hard to say, but at some point, “tough love” is an appropriate response, albeit a hard one. What else does a parent do with a recalcitrant son or daughter who insists on engaging in actions that insult your values and violate moral tenets that your faith has held for 2,000 years? Offer to pay for her commitment ceremony? Shrug your shoulders and allow her to attend Thanksgiving Dinner with her partner and your grandchildren?
By the time I left for college, my strict Lutheran parents had made clear to me that there were a handful of things that would get me cut off from the family wallet. Turning gay was one of them, but more earnestly, shacking up with a girl before marriage. We didn't discuss it much, but it was understood, and I never even considered transgressing my parents' wishes on those grounds.
If I had let my youthful passion for women cloud my thinking and disregarded my parents' values, I would have paid for my own college education, room and board, and much more.
But it never occurred to me that their position was unjust.
Because it wasn't.
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
Eric Scheske is an attorney, the Editor of The Wednesday Eudemon, a Contributing Editor of Godspy, and the former editor of Gilbert Magazine.
