Alan Keyes
February 16, 1996

Good Evening!

Thank you! Thank you very much!

What I have to do this evening is a little bit of a departure from the usual campaign speeches. I think a lot of people here know where I stand and what my campaign represents. Indeed the message of this campaign began to resonate first of all in New Hampshire, when we declared unequivocally that the issues that this country faces are not just money issues, but moral issues that have to be dealt with or we shall lose the family, and lose the decency and lose the freedom which are grounded on its strength.

I think more and more Americans are recognizing that truth. But tonight I want to speak especially to those that are gathered here under the banner of the Christian Coalition. I wish to speak to you not just as a politician on a public platform, but as a Christian, and an American engaged in the business which is indeed the business of citizenship.

I want to speak to you about the special vocation that we who are of the Christian faith and belief have in America's politics. I believe that the future of this Republic depends on how we handle ourselves, what we do, in the course of the years ahead. For we are an indispensable voice of conscience and principle in this nation's life.

We believe in our heart the fundamental principle on which this nation rests, and without our witness that principle will be destroyed. But, there are also dangers in that vocation. And I want to talk about those. But first, what is that vocation?

Well, think about the situation in the country. I don't have to go through it in great detail--you know what it is. I realize that all my competitors spend their time obsessing about these money issues. But they remind me of the parents of a family where the kids are going bad. One of them's on drugs, another's committing crimes, and another one's out there doing heaven knows what with sexual promiscuity. And meanwhile, they'll every now and again get a little raise in their allowance from their parents, and they'll sit around talking to each other about how they get the next pay raise and how they'll improve their careers--as if the only thing that matters was the material goods that they could get for their family.

How many families have been broken and destroyed in this country by people who try to fill up the spiritual void that comes from living without faith in God with things, with money, when we know that there are certain things that money cannot buy, but that can only be achieved through the reverence for Almighty God?

And I think that that's exactly the situation of this nation. We want to sit around on stages and talk about the flat tax and the trade and the jobs, and this and that. And you can pretend if you like that that is the major source of this country's problems, but in your heart you know that that's a lie.

We do not have schools overshadowed with fear and violence, and teenagers murdering one another in the streets, and fourteen-year-olds raping the ten-year-olds--we do not have younger generations without guidance, without conscience, without scruples because we don't have a flat tax!

We have those things going on because we have retreated from the moral basis of this nation's life; because we have sacrificed that institution which is dependent on that moral foundation for its survival--the marriage-based two-parent family.

THAT is why our children perish!

And while they perish, all we want to do is talk about the equivalent of raising the allowance. That's Mr. Forbes talking about the flat tax. The other day he was saying they were going to "allow" us to keep more of our money. You know, when we hear that, we should realize that that is a phrase that should apply only to serfs and slaves, not to a free people. The money we earn is our money, and we ought to understand that from the beginning.

But that attitude, "We'll sit around and see if we can raise their allowance. We'll see if we can get them addicted to the craving for a security that comes from the government," well I'll tell you, there is no security--not job security, not life security, not heart security--that can come from the government. This country was built on the strength of its people, on the character of its people! And if we don't stop looking to government to safeguard our livelihood, and our lives, we will have no freedom left.

So in the end it's got to be, its gotta be, that we're going to look at the moral underpinnings of this society--what the real cause of the family disintegration is. It's not money, not economics, not job loss. The real cause is the abandonment of those moral principles which were articulated at this nation's beginning, without which we cannot survive.

Now, the basic moral principle is very simple. When they said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," they were not only making a statement about rights. They were making a statement that clearly puts it forward that the fundamental premise of life and justice and freedom and dignity in this land is the existence and the authority of God Almighty!

And I'll put this question to you, my friends, "Who is going to bear witness to the truth of that principle, if not those who are the people of God, called by his name, carrying faith in God in their hearts, and through the example of Jesus Christ living out that love in this world? Who but us is going to bear witness to that principle in America's public life?"

That is our challenge! That is our vocation! That is our destiny as Christians, as Americans, in this land.

But I have to tell you tonight--and brace yourselves, because this is the part some of you won't want to hear. But I hope you'll listen to me anyway. As you've noticed, in my campaign I don't deal in telling people what they want to hear. I deal in telling them what I think they've gotta hear. And this you've gotta hear.

When this nation was founded, our Founders had come out of a period in Europe when wars of religious fanaticism had laid waste the European landscape--killing scores of thousands over the course of two centuries, and leading to a deepening cynicism about religion and reverence for God. They saw it as their challenge to establish a nation where people could live together in peace, following their consciences in the worship of God, a land where the reverence for God would not lead to conflict, and to war, and devastation.

That is why we live in a land today that exists under the banner of religious tolerance and religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment--guaranteeing that each and every one of us shall be free in our conscience from the coercive power of government! We have no right to use that coercive power to impose our beliefs on anyone in this land! That was one of the purposes for which this nation was founded.

And if you understand that, then you understand something else. I follow to this podium a man I greatly respect and admire. But also a man who I believe is in the midst of committing what could be a fatal mistake for the moral conservative cause.

We cannot appear before the American people, however much we feel it in our heart--my Christian heart--you ask me, "Why is abortion wrong?" and I'll tell you, "Because God says it's wrong, and the Bible says it's wrong, and those are the strictures that we must follow as people of Christian faith." But when I stand on this public platform, to answer for all Americans why abortion is wrong, I'll be quite frank with you--I cannot tell them that we can base the law on MY religious faith. It cannot be done! And if we try to make that the basis of our presentation of our moral position, I tell you now, we will be defeated, discredited, and driven from American politics.

We cannot stand before the American people, as I'm afraid Pat Buchanan just did, and tell them that the great foundations of American life are the Bible and the Constitution. He leaves something out. He leaves out that great document which is the bridge between the Bible and the Constitution. That great document which takes the principles of Christian truth and translates them into a form that provides solid ground for every American, regardless of their race, their color, their creed, their religion, their belief--solid ground for every American that claims unalienable rights to stand on moral principle and demand respect for moral decency!

That document is the Declaration of Independence. The document that states the fundamental premises of this nation's life, and which puts at the heart of our national identity not the existence of rights, but the existence of God. And which puts it there, not as a matter of Christian faith, not as a matter of Jewish faith, not as a matter of personal faith, but as a matter of American faith: an American creed, an American belief, that which unites us one and all on the common ground of principle that makes us one nation, under God!

But if we present our moral case leaving out that essential bridge, we will not win, we will be defeated. We will not serve the cause of right, but we could very well at this critical moment lead it to a defeat that will mean, quite frankly, the end of our Republic. That is how profound this moment is, how deep and serious is the moment you and I are facing.

We not only have to stand before the American people and advocate a return to moral principle, we have to do it in the right way, and on the right basis. And however much our hearts cry for it in their faith, if we mean to unite all Americans in that commitment to moral principle, then we cannot do it in a way that appears to demand that they adhere to our religious conviction as a condition of their American identity. We cannot do it in a way that demands, that seems to foment, religious conflict, when we mean in fact to offer only moral healing.

And I say here and now, that our vocation as moral conservatives should not be to fight a cultural war. It should be to offer that hand of moral healing to this nation that will bring to it the peace that it deserves: the peace of heart, the peace of mind, the peace in the schools, the peace in the streets, that we should offer our children, and that we must offer to the next generation.

I have been asked in the last few days, and I'm sure it's been on the minds of some folks here, "Now, why doesn't that Keyes fellow just withdraw, and let Pat Buchanan move along?" I'll tell you why not. I'll tell you exactly why not. Because I believe that we cannot present our moral conservative convictions under a guise that divides this country. I believe that we have to present it with the serious, thoughtful truth. And when I stand up to say that abortion is wrong, my heart, my Christian heart knows that it's wrong 'cause God says that it's wrong, because he has declared, "Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee." I know that we begin not as a moment in the womb, but as a moment in the mind of God.

But though I feel it in my Christian heart, when I speak it from my lips as an American politician, I shall speak it with the words of American principle that all Americans--regardless of their faith, regardless of their background--must heed, must respect, or else we lose it all. And I think that that's the only way that we can hope to call this nation back to moral principle.

We cannot do it in a way that suggests that we aim for religious domination, because none of us do. I stand before you a Roman Catholic. I think it would be real strange if I suddenly started to tell the rest of you that my personal religious conviction was gonna be translated into the laws of this country. I have a feeling a few of you might think that that would mean the Pope was gonna decide how you read the Bible. And I remember that a couple of centuries ago, people took a lot of pains to make clear that that was not gonna be their way.

I think we have to back off and understand that if we mean to do this the right way, we must do it the American way. And the American way is not the Bible and the Constitution alone. It is the Bible, the Declaration, and the Constitution. For, the Declaration has shaped America's heart, and America's conscience, and allows us to come together in heart and conscience in pursuit of moral principle without fear of domination, without division, without conflict, without war--in healing, in hope. I believe that's what we must offer to this nation, as Christian statesmen: not the bid for power and the domination of our Christian faith, but the heart of love, and the heart of healing, that was the essence of Christ's example. It is in that spirit of Christ's love that we can stand before the world and declare with great confidence that if our leadership prevails, this nation shall return to that true ground which is the ground of our common humanity--a humanity shaped in light of God's power and authority, but in which the consciences of all of God's human creations are left free of government domination.

And so I'm going to stand in this race and articulate that view from now until the end, in the hope that Christian people will understand that we cannot afford only to follow the dictates of our religious faith, we must shape our participation in American life with that wisdom the Savior demanded, and use the great treasure that God in his Providence has given us: an American heritage that is also grounded in respect for His will.

Thank you very much.