Alan Keyes
September 22, 1995
Washington, DC

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I'm going to spend the next few minutes talking about a topic which is mostly what I always talk about these days now. But I hope I'll be able to show that it's relevant to this discussion. And what I mostly always talk about these days is the crisis of character that this nation is in the midst of--ah, or maybe at the end of, I can't quite decide. If we're at the end of it, then things are more hopeless than I think they are. If we're still in the midst of it, then maybe there's some hope for the Republic.

I think that that crisis of character has a lot of consequences, in every area of life--obvious consequences for family structure, and things of this kind, and therefore for a whole range of problems that we face in this society related to the breakdown of family structure. I think it also has manifestations that have direct effect on the kinds of topics that you'll be discussing in the course of this conference, and in particular on the growing kind of obsession that has been evident in the country (for what, a couple of decades or more?) with rights of various kinds, group rights, victimization, things like sexual harassment in the workplace, and the gay rights agenda--a whole range of other things that are out there now walking around in the society and in our discourse getting at least attention, and related, I believe, to this very question of the moral condition of the country and of the people.

Now why, do you say, would that be the case? Well, I want to start with what I think is a good illustration of that point. In the issue of sexual harassment, or more precisely, in some of the tangential issues that are related to that, like the codes of dating conduct and other things like that that have emerging on some campuses--I've read about one where they actually were proposing specific rules for how you move from one point of intimacy to another. Ah, now I've got to confess that it seems to me that this would put a little bit of a chill on me, might take away . . . because you're supposed to stop and ask permission for each new advance across a certain boundary, right?! Now I would think that that would cause matters to kinda develop a chill after a certain point, and there was always that element of mystery in the transition from one stage to another, where a common and mutual agreement could be arrived at without the spoken word, [laughter] and that that was part of the mystery and romance of the thing.

But that appears to be removed, and we actually get into a situation where, if we were to take all of this seriously, it would be hard to see how anybody would go on a date without the presence of their lawyer! [laughter]

Now, I think that this would make for some interesting dates, and at each stage in the game being as how you would have to negotiate the terms for moving from one stage to the next, the two parties can kind of sit it out while the two lawyers talked, [laughter] and when they work out the terms and sign the agreement, go on to the next stage. Now the question would be what the lawyers were supposed to do while each stage was taking place! [laughter] But I have a feeling that lawyers do know what to do while clients are doing that to one another! [laughter] But we, I think--that's the point at which they write out their bills. [laughter]

But, you know, that scenario obviously is absurd, isn't it? But it's happened. It's absurd, but it's happened. Why is it absurd? It's absurd because somewhere deep down, there is a belief that there ought to be certain human relationships that can be managed by individuals without the intervention of government, courts, law, the state, outside powers. Now that's a kind of natural assumption we make. We make it in all kinds of areas where that assumption is getting harder and harder to make these days--I make it every day. Everybody does. You have children, you make it. I mean, you get up in the morning and relate to your children.

The way things are moving in the so-called children's rights movement, it's going to be the case that you won't even be able to get up and hug your daughter good morning, without the presence of a lawyer. Or at least without taking video tapes to make sure that no unwarranted charges can be brought against you.

There is, in all that, evidence not only of a kind of absurdity, evidence not only of an external push in the name of rights, and so forth, but it's related to something that's deeper than all. There is evidence of a radical distrust. The sense that, at a certain level, we can't be alone with each other.

Now, that has obviously already infected the work place. I think, looking around these days in the wake of any number of things that have happened, why anyone would allow a one-on-one meeting between individuals of opposite sexes without video tape or a witness there, is beyond me. I think you're talking your life in your hands, your career life, at least.

And I think people do feel this way. That level of radical distrust that results from what? Well, see, I think it results from a certain alteration in our concept of the human person. And that alteration can be understood if we look at one of these areas where group rights are being asserted. And that is, in particular, the gay rights agenda.

And to do it not terms of what is often the discussion, of whether you do approve or don't approve of this or that particular sexual activity that individuals may be engaged in--but let's look at it from another level of discussion. People are coming forward, and they are basically telling us that for purposes of discrimination, sexual orientation--read: "behavior"--must be treated like race, and rendered illegitimate. Right?

Now, it seems to me that that leaves us, though, with an interesting situation because, well, just take the example of race. I got up this morning I was a black guy. [laughter] When I go to bed tonight, you know, in all probability I will still be a black guy, and no matter how much I try to talk myself out of it in the meantime, this is still going to be the case. And that is because, by definition, this business of race is something that's really beyond my control. I know in the past people used to refer to people as being of the "colored persuasion," but I think that was a way of speaking. "Persuasion" really has nothing to do with it! [laughter]

So, if we are going to say that sexual orientation is to be treated like race for purposes of discrimination, then we're obviously saying that sexual orientation--read: "behavior"--is like race, a condition beyond the individual's control. I think that makes no sense.

Now, that's an interesting concept, "Sexual behavior is beyond the individual's control." But that does seem to undermine those concepts of sexual responsibility and accountability that are essential for certain kinds of relationships, like marriage, for instance. I mean, you get married, and there's a vow and there's an understanding you'll be faithful, but if your orientation--read: "behavior"--is beyond your control when you walk out and see an attractive man or woman, and you kind of give in to the temptation and come home after the affair and your wife kind of sees the tell tale signs, and starts to call you to account for it, or your husband starts to notice the difference and starts to call you to account for it, and you turn to them and you say, "Well, you can't raise that issue, that's just my sexual orientation. I have an adulterous orientation and that's something you have to accept!" [laughter] You see?

But it would make sense, wouldn't it? I mean, if sexual orientation--read: "behavior"--is beyond our control . . . and don't get me wrong! You may think, "That's absurd; no one's making that argument," but you remember that famous cover recently of TIME Magazine? "Infidelity: It's in the Genes"--or something like that! That's basically a way of comparing infidelity with all these arguments they have been trying to make about homosexuality. Right? I mean, in a certain sense we are, ah, held in the grip in indomitable instinct and doing what comes naturally in spite of everything.

The thing I find interesting about this is that if you accept this kind of reasoning, the one thing I don't understand is why we should be expected to draw the line at sexual passion. I think it's kind of unfair. Just as it's unfair when people think that protection for sexual orientation should only apply to, say, gay people--why is that? I think strongly if you're going to have equal protection, everybody's uncontrollable sexual orientation should be protected. And that would include adulterers, pedophiles, other sorts of people who have uncontrollable sexual urges. We should all be able to demand that our uncontrollable sexual behavior be accorded the same respect and freedom from discrimination that is being demand for gays, and so on.

Well, but then, that same principle of equality would seem to apply to other passions. Because after all, what is it that distinguishes especially sexual orientation from other passionate orientations? What if I'm somebody who's disposed to fly into a rage whenever anything doesn't go my way? You could say I had an anger orientation, and maybe that passion should be treated with respect! Or if I'm someone who's disposed to become uncontrollably jealous when somebody gets something that I want--so, I have a jealousy orientation. Why wouldn't that be subject to the same kind of respect?

You see, I don't understand why it is that we would want to accord one passion this kind of special categorization where it's beyond control and not give it to all the passions. Since it seems to me that to a certain degree they all have an equal standing in this regard, if we can't control one, why is it that we control the rest?

But if we then were to accept this notion that that would then present us with the concept of the human person which accents strict external regimentation, we are basically people out of control. Now that may sound far-fetched, but I don't think it is. Matter of fact, I think in just about every respect, this society is moving in directions that suggest that that is exactly the concept of the human person that we have done.

Examples would range from the whole gay rights agenda over to things like gun control, the premise of which is that if somebody were to bring a gun into this room and put it on the floor, somebody in here would get an uncontrollable urge to kill everybody else! [laughter] You see, I think we laugh at that a little bit because we recognize that inherent in the gun is no such uncontrollable urge. But the premise of the gun control movement is that there is some kind of, you know, optimal influence that is special to these things that then operates over the human passions that produce uncontrollable violence.

That kind of a premise, whether applied to gay rights, gun control or whatever, is really based on a certain concept of the human person--a concept of the human person which basically denies free will and responsibility, "We are not people capable of controlling our passions and our reactions to circumstance." That being the case, the only way in which we can be kind of rendered safe for one another, is if our behavior is externally controlled and surveyed. And, we then have the problem of constructing the mechanisms of this kind of external control.

Now, obviously you can't really do that, can you? I mean, apart from the possibility that you might assign a police body guard to each of us--which would get sort of expensive. It's hard to know how you could actually be able to watch us all the time, though technology may actually catch up to that difficulty any time now. But the assumption is there, and it then translates into the kinds of things that I think are happening in our world where, for instance, if I go into a job interview, looking for a job, there are two ways that I could approach that circumstance in terms of my fear. I can approach it the way we approach things these days, assuming that I am secure from discrimination of various kinds, because there are all these laws on the books, and because the individual I'm dealing with knows that if I'm not treated the way I'm supposed to be treated, some kind of wake will come down own their head from this legal structure and that provides me with security. The external structure substitutes for any degree of trust.

There's another way we can go about it, of course. I could go in assuming that being as how we are all of us Americans together, that we all share a certain common moral culture based on shared moral premises about how human beings are to treat one another, when I walked in the door I'd expect to find such an individual, and I know that I'll be treated fairly based on that moral characteristic, requiring no external structure--relying instead on the structure of character, and assuming that it will be there.

See, we've discarded the later assumption, and we are working on the former assumption, but the reason we do so has to do with the fact that we seem to be basing our approach to all these things on a certain concept of the human person--which is that, absent some kind of external mechanism of control and policing, we can't trust anyone.

Now, I would say that even though we are busily scurrying about with that assumption now in the courts of law and in labor law, and all kinds of other things, we need to examine the premise, because what we have actually done in adopting this premise is we've discarded the essential assumption of self-government. Which means that we are now operating under a regime where our concept of the human person is such that freedom and self-government, as they were understood, is impossible, and that we are substituting a regime of law that, in the end--especially given that we are tending more and more these days to identify law with the decisions of the lawyers--will become simply arbitrary rule.

But we are trusting to that because we can't trust one another, and we can't trust one another because we can no longer make assumptions about the common character of decency that we share as a people. That means that what you'll be discussing in the next several days, whatever ins and outs you may go into, is actually a reflection of the deep-seated moral crisis that we face as a people--a crisis that manifests itself partly in principle, and partly in practice.

In principle, it manifests itself as a rejection of the idea that there is a foundation in our lives for human justice and the observance of human justice. We actually come from a basic premise where there is such a foundation, but nobody wants to talk about it anymore, because they claim that it involves bringing religion into politics, because the foundation assumed is God, as the Source of unalienable rights, and as the Policeman stationed in every heart that does not require taxing!

And that can therefore be developed into a moral regime that is relatively universal. We don't believe that anymore, and therefore we are trying to substitute for that basic premise all kinds of structures of legal and external control.

Now, I don't want to tell you anything you haven't already figured out, but my assumption would be that whatever it is that you reach about the conclusions and the mechanisms of this and that, I want to tell you that this is not working, and it's not going to. No matter how ingenious you are, no matter how creative you are, you will never find a substitute for character that is compatible with freedom. And all you will be doing, if you try, is constructing the elaborate legal rationalizations for the imposition of an ever-increasing degree of totalitarian tyranny and control.

This is very depressing. I think this is not what you are doing, but it does seem to me that this is the only alternative that we have if we accept the premise that human beings are little more than beasts out of control.

Ah, but, that's the only thought I wanted to share with you. See, I only had 15 minutes, so I can only share one. [laughter] But I thought that might be an important one, and we might have a couple of seconds to take one or two questions.

Thank you very much. [applause]

Q & A session

Keyes: I think I can take a question or two. Question? Yes.

Question: Sure, just wondered if in regard to an issue like, ah, sexual orientation and the law and protected status or whatever--would you also apply the same analysis to other chosen categories such as marital status, disability, creed, any of the other categories that are also chosen?

Keyes: But it kind of depends. You know, there are certain chosen categories that have moral status, and others that do not. It seems to me that the client privilege status for categories of behavior that are subject to moral judgment is intolerable in this society. Because you are, basically, by virtue of that, shackling the conscience of others, and saying that they do not have the right to pass moral judgment on a freely chosen behavior.

Now, that is very different than saying that they do not have the right to harbor and exhibit--well, to harbor, we can't control, but to exhibit prejudice against conditions that are beyond the control of the individual. The one smacks of unfairness; the other is an absolutely necessary aspect of all moral life, since it's hard to know how we can live moral lives if we do not live and act according to moral judgments. And moral judgments, by definition, are judgments about human behavior and choices which we consider to be subject to moral control. So that can be the distinction that I would make. Those behaviors that fall in that category and are subject to moral judgment, it seems to me, when you try to regulate them to the law in this way, what you're really doing is infringing on freedom of conscience.

Keyes: Question?

Question: So what's the answer? [laughter]

Keyes: To what?

Question: To the main observation about the fact that the moral decay of our society is threatened. How do we reinstill the morality?

Keyes: Well, it's actually fairly simple! But hard, nonetheless. [laughter]

It's simple, but very difficult. The simple fact of the matter is that being as how as a people we have found no substitute for the principles of the Declaration, we ought to go back to them and take them seriously.

This is, indeed, very hard for people who have been brought up to believe that intellectual adults are not to take seriously the existence of God. It is very hard to know how you can turn to a document in which it's taken very seriously. But it's indispensable. You see, after all these many years, I think you can reach the conclusion that those who wish us to reject the principles of the Declaration--including just, by the by, the principles of natural law implied in the Declaration--have found no substitute for them except arbitrary will.

Arbitrary will is working out badly. It always did. [laughter] And therefore, if you want to get it right, we had better go back and start thinking about how we take the Declaration seriously. Now, I am trying to do that, in case you haven't noticed, in the realm of politics. I think it would be very good if someone here might try to do it in the realm of law. I actually think my brother Clarence Thomas is making a stab at it every now and again, and I love him for it. But I think that we, all of us, who wish to take the law and the Constitution seriously had better get back to it. This little experiment in legal positivism has failed, and it's getting to be an embarrassment. It's also getting to the point where having substituted the whims of judges for the rule of law; the law is coming into the contempt which the judges deserve. [applause]

And that's a problem. In a real way, there is a way to solve the problem--that is to put the judges, and their opinions, under the legal constraints of law. But there is no way to do that if we don't go back and rediscover why "the laws of nature and nature's God," as they are referred to in the Declaration, is not just an absurd little phrase.

I remember when Justice Thomas was being interrogated by the worthies on the Senate Judiciary Committee, [laughter] one of them was asking questions that indicated that he saw no distinction between a doctrine of natural law and a kind of made-up fairytale that the judge might bring to bear in any way that he pleased.

But that's not true. If you go back and take the tradition seriously, there was a tremendous discipline involved. It's a discipline that we grew impatient with and threw away, but we threw it away like a child who throws away something that they're going to need very desperately before the day ends. Ah, but we better find it. Because if we don't, I think that the rule of law in this country will, you know, be at an end. And it will come to an end, not because you abandoned it--you obviously won't, you make your livings this way! But you can be quite sure looking around the country that people will be given to abandon respect for you, and for the judges, and other magistrates that you become. And at the end of the day, you understand, there aren't enough policemen in the world, and there aren't enough soldiers in the world to enforce the law, once it has fallen into utter contempt in the hearts of the people. And it falls into utter contempt in the hearts of the people when those supposedly enforcing and interpreting it themselves acknowledge no discipline beyond their own predilections. This has got to stop.

[thunderous applause]