Posted on 09/04/2004 3:25:40 PM PDT by outlawcam
Mike Signorile, who says in his bio he co founded a now-defunct New York City magazine for lesbian and homosexuals, is known for what we might call harassing politicians about sex. He prowled the halls of the 1996 Republican Convention in San Diego, which I attended, pouncing on unsuspecting delegates about sex. It appears that at the Republican Convention in New York, he finally pounced on someone who pounced back when he went after Alan Keyes, Illinois Republican candidate for the US Senate.
Signorile's first sentence was: "I am speaking with Alan Keyes — and you've come to the Republican convention to support President Bush, I presume?"
Alan Keyes responded: "Certainly. I think that President Bush needs to be reelected for the sake of this country's security. He has provided the kind of leadership that we're going to have to have if we're going to confront and defeat the challenge of terrorism that has already claimed so many American lives."
Signorile's second sentence was: "What did you think of Vice President Cheney last week coming out and saying he doesn't agree with the President on the Federal Marriage Amendment? Seems to be a break with the party. Do you think he is sending a mixed signal?"
Alan Keyes, amiably replied: "I don't know. I think he is entitled to his personal convictions, but I think that the party's position is the correct one. We have to stand in defense of the traditional marriage institution in order to preserve its basis in procreation and make sure that we retain an understanding of family life that is rooted in the tradition of procreation, of childbearing and childrearing. That is the essence of family life."
And then Signorile attacked with: "Now, Vice President Cheney, of course, has a daughter. She is gay. He used the word gay. He says he has a gay daughter. He seems very proud of his gay daughter. It seems like real family values and certainly seems like preserving the American family. Is his family un-American?"
That wasn't a very smart move on Signorile's part. The next part of the interview went as follows:
Mike Signorile: "Well, one can wish that Bob and Liddy Dole would have a child, but that's just impossible. Pigs can't fly.
Alan Keyes: No, I'm sorry, that is incidental. In point of fact, Bob and Liddy Dole can have children. They incidentally face problems that prevent them from doing so. In principle . . ."
Mike Signorile: "Don't homosexuals incidentally face problems too?"
Alan Keyes: "No, you don't understand the difference between incident and essence. Homosexuals are essentially incapable of procreation. They cannot mate. They are not made to do so. Therefore the idea of marriage for two such individuals is an absurdity."
Mike Signorile: "But one or the other in the couple can procreate. The men can donate their sperm, the women can have babies."
Alan Keyes: "The definition and understanding of marriage is 'the two become one flesh.' In the child, the two transcend their persons and unite together to become a new individual. That can only be done through procreation and conception. It cannot be done by homosexuals."
Mike Signorile: "But what about a heterosexual couple who cannot bear children and then adopt? They are not becoming as one flesh, they are taking someone else's flesh."
Alan Keyes: "And they are adopting the paradigm of family life. But the essence of that family life remains procreation. If we embrace homosexuality as a proper basis for marriage, we are saying that it is possible to have a marriage state that in principle excludes procreation and is based simply on the premise of selfish hedonism. This is unacceptable."
Mike Signorile: "So Mary Cheney is a selfish hedonist, is that it?"
Alan Keyes: "Of course she is. That goes by definition. Of course she is."
Mike Signorile: "I don't think Dick Cheney would like to hear that about his daughter."
Alan Keyes: "He may or may not like to hear the truth, but it can be spoken."
[UNIDENTIFIED VOICE]: "Do you really believe that, that Mary Cheney . . ."
Alan Keyes: "By definition, a homosexual engages in the exchange of mutual pleasure. I actually object to the notion that we call it sexual relations because it's nothing of the kind.
[UNIDENTIFIED VOICE]: "What is it?"
Alan Keyes: "It is the mutual pursuit of pleasure through the stimulation of the organs intended for procreation, but it has nothing to do with sexuality because they are of the same sex. And with respect to them, the sexual difference does not exist. They are therefore not having sexual relations."
Mike Signorile: "Mr. Keyes, how can you support President Bush then, because if something were to happen to him, the President would be Dick Cheney, who has a daughter who you say is a hedonist, and a selfish hedonist, and the President would be supporting that at that point?"
Alan Keyes: "It seems to me that we are supporting a ticket that is committed to the kinds of things that are necessary to defend this country, and we are all united in that support, in spite of what might be differences on issues here and there."
Contrary to the way this has been reported by most news sources, it wasn't Alan Keyes who called Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist." It wasn't Alan Keyes who brought up the Cheney family and it wasn't Keyes who was trying to create a scene. It was Signorile who brought up the Cheney family and Signorile, the homosexual, who, trying to rattle the unflappable Alan Keyes, said: "So Mary Cheney is a selfish hedonist."
A hedonist is a person whose highest goal in life is pleasure. Not all the selfish hedonists in our culture are homosexuals or lesbians, according the Keyes clear definition. That definition would also fit heterosexuals who selfishly avoid procreation or whose selfishness leads to divorce.
Keyes' sex education lesson to a confused homosexual ought to be required reading in every sex education class in the country. It might begin scaling back the flood of misery, disease, and early death that await those who chose to get involved in homosexual and lesbian life styles.
hmmm.... seems we ought to repeal the 14th amendment. ...
I've seen no evidence that this actually has a chance of passing. All of the Dims, the media, and many Pubbies fallaciously cry about separation of powers and infringing on the judiciary's authority. People don't know; it's not a common sense thing like marriage is, so its chances of success are far less likely, IMO.
I agree.
The problem, my dear paine, is that your interpretation of the 14th amendment is in part under question.
The 14th is as clear in its language as the 2nd, imo. The principle behind both amendments are protecting our individual freedoms. Those who 'interpret' them otherwise are letting their single issue agendas trump logic.
In many posts you rely on your interpretation of what that means. I hate to tell you this but many disagree with your understanding of that amendment.
They would also hate to have to tell you ~why~ they oppose life liberty & property rights, no doubt.
I am much stricter (restricting myself to meaning of the words of Constitution and taking them in their strict sense only) in understanding that amendment. It is my position that unless you restrict yourself to the explicit immunities listed in the Bill of Rights, you open up the door to judicial fiat and usurpation as outlaw claims has happened, and with whom I agree.
You both ~claim~ these ~marriage~ 'usurpation's' have happened, but I see no proofs. I see no individual rights violated.
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What of the right of the unborn to life? Is this not properly safeguarded by the laws of the states. Or are we simply to let go the discussion of when that right begins and bow down in deferment to the judge. If the unborn have no such right, then that should be decided by the legislature (legislative deference). If they have such a right, then if anything the courts should defend it according to your argument. The right to life is more fundamental and prior to the right to liberty. For without it, liberty is impossible, wherefore in the canon of inalienable rights listed in the Declaration and the 14th amenmendent it holds primacy of place.
The courts have expanded the powers of the feds as much as the other branches, and in the case of abortion they have expanded it as much as any amendment might. Likewise in the case of the meaning of "marriage."
The meaning of marriage is not a Constitutional issue worthy of an Amendment. -- The meaning of murder/abortion is a matter of common law that should be decided by juries.. Not fiat prohibitions.
And contrary to your opinion, the point is not about taxes, insurance, etc., the point is about the meaning of words themselves and whether judges have the authority to rewrite not only the constitution, but the dictionary. Judges have never had such "authority" in our system.
Just as amendment is not the best answer to this judicial usurpation, neither is simply establishing a fair tax (which is a great idea nevertheless). We musn't make more laws for judges to interpret but curb judicial taste for defining words like marriage and not defining or placing in our Constitution words like emanation, penumbra, zone and privacy.
To deny that we have an inalienable right to a private life, liberty, and private property is mind-boggling in my estimation. Why on earth do you reject one of your most precious freedoms?
To be blunt, liberty is a non-right without first life. Why do you reject the right to life?
I don't. You make a false claim that I do, because you believe that the life within a pregnant woman should be protected by government from conception.
Such a concept ignores the pregnant woman's rights.
Or I should ask, less rhetorically, why do you think it the judges role to say when life begins and when the right to life begins?
In our system, neither judges nor legislators get to to say when life begins and when the right to life begins. That function is best left to juries at murder trials.
I agree it is not for the feds. That does not mean that it is not for the states to defend the right to life.
I agree. Let States defend fairly both the rights of the mother & child, and the controversy ends.
Unfair and prohibitive laws on abortion, by States, led to this mess. An Amendment attempting to criminalize early term abortion would create an even greater Constitutional mess.
Judges have removed the abortion/murder question from juries, from political debate, from discourse.
Backwards.. -- In early term abortion, they were forced to do so by fiat State 'laws' that violated individual womens rights to a trial by jury. Women were being declared criminal because of prohibitions on abortion.
What we have are two fundamental rights in apparent clash.
Exactly. -- And at conception, and for 2 or 3 months after, a womans Constitutional rights trump those of the life developing within her.
Unless we take Hobbes preLeviathan view of fundamental right: the right to everything even another's body.
A woman has a very fundamental right to her own body, newly pregnant or not. `
WHat are you talking about. Please explain.
I don't. You make a false claim that I do, because you believe that the life within a pregnant woman should be protected by government from conception. Such a concept ignores the pregnant woman's rights.
The woman has no right to kill the life of another within her. The child a woman carries is her child, yes. It is not her. She has a duty to bring that child to term. And yes the law can say she has that duty. Without duties, rights devolve into mere license. Duties are a burden that we ought to undertake happily though at times perhaps with difficulty. Just as we have a duty to defend the Constitution and its principles the principal of which is the right to life.
You would prefer that the Supreme Court define what are rights and what are not and not the people. I think it servile and unrepublican so to defer. Of course, there are some rights that are clearly articulated in the Bill of Rights. However, the rest must be left to the states and the people themselves as articulated by the 9th and 10th amendments. I am not one who thinks that the 14th has overturned these. If it be so (which seems to be the case in practice), the 14th ought to be overturned --- of course that concedes that it was ever ratified in the first place :)
Which I find rather strange, since Keyes has written extensively about how he doesn't consider Bush a fellow conservative either.
Keyes is a man who portrays himself as such a moral purist that he has the right to condemn anybody who dares to vary from his convictions one bit.
Yet he displays the same political pragmatism which you describe as "tact", during an election?
I describe that as amazing hypocrisy that makes him far less moral than anything he's accused Bush of.
Good job responding to my point, which was that Keyes has been fully behind the president since his reelection campaign began.
I don't. You make a false claim that I do, because you believe that the life within a pregnant woman should be protected by government from conception. Such a concept ignores the pregnant woman's rights.
In our system, neither judges nor legislators get to to say when life begins and when the right to life begins. That function is best left to juries at murder trials.
WHat are you talking about. Please explain.
You have to learn to follow overall context in debate. -- Cherry picking remarks from our dialog and asking for 'meaning' is what's confusing you.
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The woman has no right to kill the life of another within her. The child a woman carries is her child, yes. It is not her.
At conception, and for 2 or 3 months after, a womans Constitutional rights trump those of the life developing within her.
She has a duty to bring that child to term. And yes the law can say she has that duty.
Nope, our Constitutional law, -[see the 10th & 14th Amendments]-, says that the governments only have powers as delegated. -- Your imagined 'duty' is not an enumerated lawful power.
Without duties, rights devolve into mere license. Duties are a burden that we ought to undertake happily though at times perhaps with difficulty.
You're preaching that unless newly pregnant women follow your version of 'duty', they are being licentious. - Preach what you like, but keep it out of our law.
Just as we have a duty to defend the Constitution and its principles the principal of which is the right to life.
The Constitution defends the rights of ALL, even newly pregnant women.
At conception, and for 2 or 3 months after, a womans Constitutional rights trump those of the life developing within her.
You would prefer that the Supreme Court define what are rights and what are not and not the people.
We 'defined' our Constitutional rights long ago. You want to redefine them by decreeing that early term abortion is murder. Let a jury decide that issue, in the american way.
I think it servile and unrepublican so to defer.
Hype.
Of course, there are some rights that are clearly articulated in the Bill of Rights. However, the rest must be left to the states and the people themselves as articulated by the 9th and 10th amendments.
You've misread the intent of those Amendments. States do not have the power to decide what our unenumerated rights shall be. They can only reasonably regulate individual behavior using due process of Constitutional law. Prohibitions & decrees are not due process.
I am not one who thinks that the 14th has overturned these. If it be so (which seems to be the case in practice), the 14th ought to be overturned --- of course that concedes that it was ever ratified in the first place.
There you have it. You want to overturn a clear Constitutional principle. -- We have unenumerated rights to life, liberty, and property, that no level of our governments have ever been empowered to infringe upon.
You're willing to do all this just to control early term abortion? -- You still can accuse others of being "unrepublican"?
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