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| Illinois U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes has been outspoken
in his opposition to gay rights. Media reports indicate Keyes’ daughter
Maya maintains a blog that talks about her life as a lesbian.
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• The late California state Sen. Pete Knight who
spearheaded the ultimately successful Proposition 22 that bans gay marriage in
California, has a gay son, David.
• Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the conservative Eagle Forum, was instrumental
in drafting the Republican Party platform language opposing gay marriage and civil
unions, has a gay son, John.
• President of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality
Charles Socarides, has a gay son Richard, who was liaison to the gay community
under President Clinton.
• Anti-gay rights and pro-life activist Randall Terry, has a gay son, Jamiel.
• Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Mary is a lesbian.
• Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s half-sister Candace
is a lesbian.
• Sadie Fields, state chair of the Christian Coalition of Georgia, who helped
push the constitutional ban on gay marriage, has a gay daughter, Tess.
• Bill Byrne, who was head of the Cobb County Commission in 1993 when it
passed a resolution proclaiming “the homosexual lifestyle” unwelcome
in the suburban Atlanta community, has a lesbian daughter Shannon. |
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: JOE CREA
COMMENTS
 
Bloggers and online chat rooms were abuzz over rumors last month that Illinois
Senate candidate Alan Keyes’ 19-year-old daughter Maya is a lesbian.
Keyes, who called Mary Cheney — the lesbian daughter of the vice president
— a “selfish hedonist” during a radio interview in August
at the Republican National Convention in New York, has refused to comment on
the rumors.
In a subsequent interview with the Chicago Tribune, Keyes stood by the slur
and even said he would say the same thing to his own daughter.
“I have said that if you are actively engaging in homosexual relations,
those relations are about selfish hedonism,” Keyes told the Tribune. “If
my daughter were a lesbian, I’d look at her and say, ‘That is a
relationship that is based on selfish hedonism.’ I would also tell my
daughter that it’s a sin, and she needs to pray to the Lord God to help
her to deal with that sin.”
If Maya is indeed a lesbian — and a blog that purports to be hers talks
openly about being gay — she joins a growing list of gay children whose
parents are Christian or conservative leaders.
That list already includes John Schlafly, son of social conservative leader
Phyllis Schlafly, and Richard Socarides, whose father Charles is the president
of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality.
Many conservative Christians believe homosexuality is a choice and as a result
their child can be converted and healed, said Debbie Caldwell, senior editor
at BeliefNet, an independent, multi-faith Web site.
“They believe essentially their child is sinning, and they would not
want to provide legal protections to them because it would codify the sin into
law,” Caldwell said. “It all gets back to the way they read their
Bible. Their positions on gay issues are not a matter of what is appropriate
for a civil society. It’s what is important in the eyes of God.”
In explaining this curious family dynamic, Margaret Crosbie-Burnett, psychology
professor at the University of Miami who specializes in gay issues within families,
said that while there is some research on how families in general handle homosexuality,
there is no explicit study examining what happens when a child comes out to
a parent who is a prominent Christian conservative.
“From a religious perspective, if you believe everything your religion
is telling you, you have a child who is going to hell,” said Crosbie-Burnett.
“If that’s the level you are dealing with, that’s truly frightening.
Such parents are also concerned with the conflict such a declaration causes.
They say, ‘How can you do this to the family?’ They are caught in
this huge conflict, and they want to keep this a secret.
“Especially if they are prominent they will ask, ‘What’s
going to happen to me and my career goals? What if people at work know I have
a gay child?’”
But as parents grapple with the issue of homosexuality, the child is often
excluded from family activities, Crosbie-Burnett said.
“They may be included in some family events but not others,” Crosbie-Burnett
said. “Some of these extrusions can be as damaging as total rejection.”
She added that parents might be concerned with what people will think of them
because they “created” a gay child.
“That’s one of the parental fears,” Crosbie-Burnett said.
“In some interesting ways, the family goes through a coming out process
just like the gay person. It parallels in many ways. The psychological journey
is the same.”
Mary Tolbert, executive director of the Center for Lesbian & Gay Studies
in Religion & Ministry, said many prominent Christians who have a gay or
lesbian child become even more dedicated to opposing gay rights because it has
caused disruption in their own family.
“Because a lot of conservative Christians look at it as a choice,”
Tolbert said. “So here’s a child who has been raised not to make
a wrong choice — that’s the conservative Christian credo —
and they ‘chose’ to be gay. People will wonder what kind of teaching
that kid received. And that’s the threat it provides. Because part of
what conservative Christian belief says is if you obey all the rules, you will
be fine and your family will be ...
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