Alan Keyes
April 3, 2004
Dallas, Texas

Good morning. I think that today I'm going to start my talk where I would ordinarily end it. I'm serious, because ordinarily, one sort of leads up to the question of why people have come and what they intend to do after they finish here--but I want to start there today, because everything that I have to say is oriented towards trying to get up to understand one fundamental fact: and that is that things that we have for a long time taken for granted in our country can no longer be taken for granted, and that we are now not in the midst of a crisis that will determine the future of our liberty and our nation, but we are approaching the final moments of that crisis.

Decisions that are confronting us right now, today, in different parts of our country with respect to institutions so fundamental, not just to freedom, but to civilization itself, decisions are being taken, even as we speak, that will determine in this generation the fate of all the generations to come in our nation. And given the role of America in the world, one has to assume that, just as we were the champion against all manner of evil in the 20th century, when we have sacrificed all that is essential to the moral foundations of our country, we will transform the great power of this nation into a force for evil in the 21st century.

We don't get it. I don't believe that America ends up as some mediocrity in history. We are either going to be a force for great good, as we have been, or a force for great evil, as we must become if we do not succeed in mobilizing those forces who mean to stand against those who have declared implacable war upon God in our public life.

And so, the question, my friends, is clear: what are we going to do? People talk about--well, I listen to folks talking all the time, I listen to people on the radio and other places like this, they're always lamenting the fact that basic beliefs and basic institutions and basic rights are being assaulted and destroyed, that clear absurdities are now being put forward in our law, that fundamental institutions are being thrown aside, and yet we sit on our hands and act like there's nothing we can do.

And that is particularly true, by the way, of people who profess to be believers in the American way of life. I still think it is the case, and it especially seems to be when you look at a polls, and so forth and so on, that folks who believe in the right things constitute still the overwhelming majority of Americans. It's true. You look at polls now on this whole issue of homosexual marriage, people across the country are solidly against it. They are solidly against taking the Ten Commandments out of our public life, they were solidly against taking prayer out of public schools, they were solidly against taking Bible instruction out of our classroom, they have been solidly against every step that represented the divorce between this nation and its Godly heritage.

Well, but think of it. Given that we define this as a government of the people, by the people, for the people, if the people are solidly against it, why does it happen? You do have to wonder. Maybe it's because we're just nasty, bad, lazy, ignorant people, and we don't care as much as we say; we have opinions, but we won't act on them; we have beliefs, but we don't do anything to put them into practice, because we no longer have the common sense or courage to do it. You think that's right?

[audience: "yes"; applause]

No, wait a minute, wait a minute. Before you go accepting that thesis, I think we have to examine a little bit the situation in which we find ourselves, and the situation that, in fact, has brought those of us right here together today. It's a situation that gives evidence of the insidious nature of the wickedness we're faced with in America right now. Because, you see, I don't think it's because people are just lazy and shiftless and lacking in courage and so forth--there may be some who are, but I don't think that's the whole reason. No.

I think in fact we live in a time when characteristics of our people that are actually quite good and decent have been exploited in order to undermine their willingness to act in defense of that which is good and decent. It's fascinating, isn't it?

And the case and situation of Judge Roy Moore in Alabama is a perfect case in point. I remember when he was being persecuted, first by the federal judge telling him to take the Ten Commandments out, then by folks in his own state on that supreme court in Alabama, and so forth, removing him from office. I would encounter people who were friends of mine, who professed to be conservatives and moral conservatives, they would just say, "Well, I believe in the Ten Commandments, but he should obey the law! He's breaking a law!" and so forth and so on.

Now, wait a minute. Before you criticize folks, I think we ought to remember: obedience to law is very important to the success of our country. Always has been. One of the reasons why self-government and government of the people, government through elected representatives, government based upon the authority of the people, one of the reasons why it has worked in America when it has so often failed in other parts of the world is because, by and large, Americans will obey the law. And they will often obey the judges who sit on the bench, because they represent the authority of the majesty of the law. This is not a bad thing. This is not something we want to do away with in any way, because it is fundamental to the success of our country.

But here's the insidious part. Some decades back, we let folks going into court making arguments that, "Well, it is unconstitutional, violates the First Amendment in the Constitution, which established separation of church and state, it violates that separation of church and state for there to be. . . ." and then there was a long list of things they've gone after, right? It started with any kind of interaction between the government and education that involves religion, and continued with getting prayer out of the public schools, and Bible study and everything else. It has moved forward to remove the prayers from the games that were associated with public education and so forth and so on, until finally it becomes the basis for scouring the hallways and the classroom of every vestige, even of personal beliefs, which have been under assault in many school systems around the country--all under the rubric of separation of church and state.

But that's not the only thing. I'll bet a lot of the folks in our country right now--even those who are in positions of leadership who are now fighting the effort to save marriage--I'll bet a lot of people in this audience support that effort to try to save the traditional marriage, the heterosexual, monogamous marriage. We want to see that institution strengthened and preserved. It is now under assault. In a matter that makes mock of the very idea of marriage and that would extend its privileges in such a way as to destroy its meaning.

I wonder how many of you folks who are fighting that battle understand that if you read Lawrence [vs. Texas] and other decisions here, but guess what they are based on? That same notion that it is not legitimate to apply the moral convictions and consequences of faith to law and politics. "You can't do this! The fact that this religion or that one says that homosexuality is a sin doesn't mean you can legislate against it!" that's what we are told. "The fact that marriage is outlined in the scriptures as between a man and a woman doesn't mean that you can have that understanding of marriage as the foundation in your law," that's what they're telling us. Why? Ultimately, for the same reason: because of the separation of church and state.

And there might be those who say, "Well, that's only assuming that marriage is religiously based." Well, I've got news for you. It is!

The understanding of marriage in this country is directly derived from our biblical heritage and tradition. Directly derived. This was so acknowledged by the Supreme Court back in the 19th century, when they were dealing with the issue of polygamy, and in fact nothing has changed. The truth of the matter is that when they assault our rights to see reflected in our public life and in our laws the consequences of our faith, they assault all those institutions that are drawn from, derived from, and justified by that faith.

If we do not win the battle to acknowledge God then we shall lose the battle to defend every institution based upon the word of God!

And don't fool yourselves. Some people think, "Well, we're going to go down this road and we'll rest. There might be civil unions, some homosexual marriage, this kind of thing." We've dealt with simple, common sense things nobody seems to want to look at--now, partly because they are kind of unpleasant, and one doesn't want to spend too much time concentrating, as a believer, I guess, on what sinful people do. But we need to in this case, so I hope you won't mind if I mention the fact that, in reading I've done over the years about homosexual couples, you know one of the things they take pains to do when they decide that they would like to have a family, have children? They take pains to make sure that in whatever means they use to conceive a child, they mask the identity of the other parent. So, if it's a lesbian couple, you don't want to know who the man was, if it's a homosexual couple, you don't want to know who the woman was who was involved. You want to find some way to mask that--from who? Especially from the child. They think that's going to interfere with this so-called "two mommies," "two daddies" sort of thing.

Now, you see, here's where we lose the common sense of it. Last time I looked, there was this commandment--part of what drove us here is the fact that we're aware of this commandment--and it said, "Honor thy father and thy mother."

Somebody's going to have to explain to me how one can honor a father or a mother you don't even know. It gets worse when we think it through. We're not thinking it through. Leave that aside. If there's some confusion about this, and this applies to other things, as well, the rampant promiscuity and other stuff that goes on in our world now, but it also applies here. We're not thinking, are we? Because, if you don't know who your mom and dad are, you also don't know who your brother is or who your sister is--and that means that not only have we abandoned the commandment that says "honor thy father and mother," we've also crossed the line, and no matter what you argue, the necessary, factual, practical implication is that incest must take place because people can't help it. They don't know who their brother and sister is.

We think that we're dealing with just one issue here. We are dealing with all the issues where God's authority has established institutions that are meant to preserve the integrity of that nature which He instills in us.

And we are also dealing with it, of course, at another level--because the whole thrust of the movement that is clamoring for homosexual marriage and acceptance of homosexuality is based on what? Well, the idea that somehow or another this is an ineluctable element of biology that is talked about. I remember going to a women's conference some years ago in Nairobi. They talked about it as if there were many genders, right? There aren't just two. I think in one document they had five. Well, excuse me if I can't remember what they are, but there they were!

What does that imply? I've watched this with [unintelligible] churches and other folks who've gone astray, but the [unintelligible] these things as the Episcopalians have done in some areas--what are they doing? Do they know? I wonder. They will leave aside their rejection of Christ's understanding of marriage. Christ actually took some pains to define marriage, and the phrase that He used was, "And the two become one flesh." Isn't that right? When do the two become one flesh? In the child, of course. In the child! The two don't become one flesh until the child is conceived. Now our scientific knowledge note that that is infinitely true, that two become one flesh, that elements of both mother and father become the basis for the being and identity of that child in a biological sense. Christ understood this. He knew that marriage was, in fact, a fleshly institution, and that its definition involved procreation.

If there can be no procreation, there can in principle be no marriage. And I know there's going to be some people who say, "Well, what about people who are infertile?" and so forth. That's not in principle. That's a factual inability, not an inability in principle. When two males get together, that is in principle a situation in which procreation is impossible, and in which marriage cannot exist.

Accept and embrace that idea of marriage, and you have rejected Christ's understanding of what marriage is. Why call yourself a Christian after that? I don't know. But leave that aside. You also have the fact that with Christian people based on, what? Based on our belief that Jesus Christ is the Savior, and that that belief was established based on the truth of the scripture. Search all the way back to the Old Testament, what do we find? Well, as I recall, right there in the beginning when God created us, it says very clearly, "Male and female He created them. In the image and likeness of God created He them." Who can dispute this, that maleness and femaleness are not accidents but are both essential to our nature?

As understood in that scriptural sense, that first thought, and second, that male and female, that's the vision in our nature, not only tells us something about us--if we search that scripture seriously, it tells us something about God.

Don't we get it yet that in our nature there is a reflection of God, and that that phrase is not used of us until after Eve is created? Why not? Because it is only after Eve is created that man is complete, that he is perfected in the image and likeness of God. The sexual distinction therefore introduces us to something that we would need to explore and understand about who and how God is. Reject the sexual distinction, and you have rejected that mystery. It's not just behavioral, it's theological.

Deeply grounded, therefore, is the institution of marriage, deeply grounded is this understanding of human sexuality in the religious heritage in our people. Reject that heritage, declare that there is a wall of separation that keeps that heritage from having any influence on our law, and you cannot defend the understanding of our human nature, you cannot defend the institutions that rely upon God's word and authority.

So, I say to you here quite clearly: this is not just a battle that is about whether or not Roy Moore can put the Ten Commandments in the State Judicial Building in Alabama. It's a battle about whether we are going to keep the institution of marriage, whether we're going to respect the innocence of our children, whether we'll respect the incest taboo, whether we'll respect any of the injunctions written down in the Bible that require that we respect God's authority in the way that we conduct our affairs.

But then we come up against that hard point: "If these folks are right on one, and there's separation of church and state, then it doesn't matter what you just said. It doesn't matter at all."

How do we get past this? Well, see, there's an easy way to get past it. If someone tells you that the Constitution says X, what's the first thing you ought to do? Read it!

The wonderful thing about having a written Constitution which makes it far superior to a Constitution passed on by some oral tradition, where you have to rely on what judges and lawyers tell you--aren't you glad we don't have to rely on what judges and lawyers tell us in America, because the laws are written down?

And what do you find in the Constitution of the United States? When people approach me about Justice Moore, and they say, "He's a lawbreaker, he doesn't respect the law, the federal judge is ordering the law," I say, "What law? Where is it? Show it to me. What law is it that requires separation of church and state?"

If they tried to tell me a federal law, I'd go to the Constitution, I'll say, "Wait a minute. Right here, right here, in the First Amendment it says, 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion!'" So, if there's a law on the books that deals with the subject of religious establishment, how religion in the states is related, if there is such a law on the federal books, that law is obviously unconstitutional.

But there isn't one. Well, let's try it again. They'll say, "Well, it's in the Constitution," and then, you know, this is the trick of it. They will then take us in the Constitution to that very phrase, and they'll say, "There it is! That's the prohibition. You can't have any kind of mingling of church and state. Congress shall make no law."

Leaving aside the fact that we were talking about Chief Justice Moore, who is no part of Congress, leaving aside little common sense things like that, what the phrase actually says, though, is not a prohibition against religious establishment. It is a prohibition against congressional action dealing with the subject.

When are we going to get this through our heads? For the last forty, and fifty, and sixty years, the lawyers and the judges who have pretended that there is some reference to separation in the Constitution have lied to us!

And we must no longer act as the victims of this lie! It is by means of this lie that they have made our reverence for law the enemy of our reverence for God, that they have put us in a position where we must sit idly by while laws are put on the books which we cannot in Christian conscience obey?

When are we going to wake up to what they're doing here? We have taken our citizenship and the comfortable relationship between our faith and our freedom so cavalierly that now we'll sit on our hands while it's destroyed.

Will somebody answer me yet what a Christian is going to do when they place a law in the books requiring that you honor what God does not, that you accept as good what God says is wrong, that you embrace as right what God says is sinful? What will you do? How will you answer that challenge?! It will then not just be some challenge to your tolerance, it will be a deep challenge to your faith!

And that is where we're headed right now. In California, they had a law that was going to require--it was on Gray Davis' desk, I think he signed it--that requires that in order to adopt a child in California, you had to affirm homosexuality.

If they succeed in legitimizing what the scripture says is sinful, then it will become unlawful, you understand, to preach that homosexuality is a sin--it's already in place in color.

Don't you understand what we are getting into here? And the force of law will then be brought down upon our heads, and we will go from a country in which being a Christian was comfortable to a country where if you in fact act as a Christian believer, you will be punished and persecuted even as we were in the beginning.

Now, I would say maybe that we'd better prepare for that persecution, but we better go back to those thoughts of the scripture where Christ makes it clear that this is part of our Christian vocation! But I also believe that we should not sit back and simply expect this fate as inevitable! Not when we know that this whole structure of persecution will be based upon a lie!

In fact, the Constitution of the United States, far from requiring separation of church and state, was written so as to make sure that the federal government could not impose upon the states any uniform regime of religion in this country.

It said, quite clearly, not that there can be no religious establishment, no God in politics, no reference to religion in any of our laws--didn't say that at all. It simply said that anything that had to do with these questions had to be decided and was left in the hands of the states and the people of the states, free from interference by the federal government.

Now, you tell me something. How have we gotten from a Constitution that guarantees the right of states to deal with this issue according to the Constitutional choice of their people, to a situation where a federal judge sitting on a bench can serve dictates that the Ten Commandments must be ripped out of the heart of the people of Alabama, and they can do nothing about it?

See, I don't believe we are there. I believe we are only going to be there if we let ourselves be placed in this position. For, where the Constitution recognizes the rights, it also provides the remedy. And there in Article 3, Section 2, clear remedy--meant, by the way, for just these situations where the federal judges overstep their boundaries, and encroached upon the prerogatives of the people and the states, as well as the other branches, and the Congress has the right to make exception to their jurisdiction, to take an area and remove it from the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

And what better area as a candidate for the use of this authority than that area which the First Amendment, according to its terms, leaves in the hands of the states and the people respectively?

If we have come together here for any reason, I hope it wasn't just to listen to speeches and go, I hope it was to understand that what we are dealing with here threatens the very moral foundations of every institution we hold dear, that what we are dealing with here is based upon an insidious lie, that we, in fact, have the constitutional and lawful right to stand up and demand that Congress defend this fundamental liberty of our people!

And unless we do, we shall see imposed throughout this land, in every state, in every locality, in every school, in every public place, throughout our public life a uniform regime of atheism that will drive not only from the public square but from our laws every vestige of influence that comes from our faith and our religious heritage.

I can't believe you're going to let this happen. I can't believe that Christian people, born into a country that was founded on a principle that respects the fundamental tenets of our faith, including the sovereignty of God: "all men are created equal," not made equal by law, not made equal by the president, not made equal by judicial fiat, made equal by the will and authority of the Creator, God!

As God and His authority was invoked when this nation was founded on the basis of our rights, so we shall only keep those rights if we hold on to the right to appeal for God's authority when they are violated!

But, you see, we watched Justice Roy Moore being removed--for what? Because, if you had seen, he refused to give up as a public official his right to acknowledge God! You must see, my friends, in Roy's situation, not just the situation of one man, or one public official, you must see your situation! For, every time you pick up the ballot, you exercise the most vital public office in this country! And if we are being told that we cannot hold such offices if we hold to those beliefs which are the consequence of our faith, then, like Roy Moore, we shall be removed from that office. We shall be set in conflict with ourselves: our duty to God made the enemy of those duties they seek to impose upon us by the force of law.

Is this what self-government is supposed to be? Quite the contrary. The Founders protected this fundamental right of religious liberty first because they felt and understood that it was the most important. They knew that a people that appeals to God for their rights and for their understanding of their nature and their worth must always be free to acknowledge God, and to reverence God in the conduct of its public affairs. Give up that right, and you give up your liberty. It's really as simple as that.

Are any of you going to start wondering, the ACLU, all these people, they come, they're assaulting, they're complaining that it somehow interferes with somebody's religious freedom--these folks aren't advocates for freedom. They are assaulting that fundamental right which makes freedom possible, they are assaulting that fundamental right of appeal to God which makes the courage of a free people possible. They are assaulting that which has been the basis in every generation of this nation's life, for folks to rally 'round when their rights were trampled upon, for folks to rally 'round when injustice was being done, for folks to stand against those forces, even armed with the mighty powers of the law and the state, when those forces abused them in a way contrary to the laws of God.

Are we still such a people?

I don't know. But I do know this: once we have taken God's name from every wall, removed His laws from every courthouse, removed the sound of hearts prayerfully lifted up to Him from every school and every public place, once we have taken the Bible verses off the Liberty Bell, and scoured the Ten Commandments from the walls of the Supreme Court, I do know this--we shall no longer be a people living in the midst of that foundation for our courage which made our freedom possible.

Those of us here who remember as an echo of our upbringing the truth: [unintelligible] shall be gone, and there shall be those only who have lived in a wasteland of atheism, made to feel ashamed of their faith, ashamed to act upon it as citizens. That truth which made us free will be forgotten, and so, I fear, will be the courage to defend that freedom.

Is this the legacy we intend to leave for our future generations? Shall we be the first that leave the foundations of liberty not stronger, but so weakened after us that they have been destroyed?

This is the question, and I put it, especially, not just to citizens at large, I put it especially to citizens who are believers. I put it especially to citizens who acknowledge in their heart the sovereignty and authority of God. Christ tells us to be good Samaritans. We're not supposed to pass by, unaffected, those who have been robbed and left bloodied and beaten in a ditch.

Don't we Christians see that our country is the victim of just such a theft, that the great principle of God's authority which is the foundation for our claim to liberty was a treasure, and that, lo, these past decades, we have been robbed of it?

And now, with the destruction of our vital institutions, the body politic of our freedom lies bleeding from a thousand wounds that soon shall be fatal to our character and our liberty.

When are we going to get down off our high horse, stop saying we love America, and start acting as if we love our country--not with the love of the flesh, and not with the love of emotion and materialism, but with the Christian love that Christ recommends.

And that is a love which will not stand idly by when our nation is robbed of truth, but will stand forward with courage to defend that truth and to defend in its name our right to acknowledge the Author of all truth: He is Almighty God.

This is the challenge for all of us here--and I hope we'll answer that challenge because, you see, we are in the process of holding rallies, calling people together, but each one is just the seed of another. We must go forward, we must spread this word into our churches and into our neighborhoods, and into houses of our friends, and into our workplace, building toward that day when, by the thousands and hundreds of thousands, Americans will converge on Washington, D.C., and raise up the banner of our true religious liberty to demand of the Congress that they take action to end this tyranny of the federal judiciary which assaults the moral life of our people and intends to destroy their freedom!

I believe that if we will in faith take on this challenge with the courage shown by those in the past, like Washington, who went down upon his knees to pray God in the darkest days of the Revolutionary War, knowing that if he persevered, however long the odds, with God's help, he could prevail.

Don't we still believe this? Because, if we do, then regardless of the odds, and regardless of the numbers, and regardless of the vilification that may be brought against us, we must move forward in faith and in a true spirit of Christian love to example that revival of this nation's faithful spirit that will signal for the future the restoration of its true and righteous liberty. Then we shall defend the family, then we shall restore the true understanding of marriage, then we shall rediscover the basis of family life and procreation and sexual discipline--then we shall see all these shadows that now haunt our land, including that scourge of abortion, which reaches into the womb to destroy the very life of our innocent future, then shall they all be defeated, they shall all be overthrown, but they shall be overthrown because we have restored in the heart of America our God upon His throne.

If we are willing to move forward with courage, and come what may, to pursue this great objective as the goal of our Christian patriotism, our Christian citizenship, our Christian dedication to public life, then and then alone will we have acted to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity--and to ensure that this great nation which has so enjoyed those blessings will live on to share them as we have, not just with all Americans, but with all those people from every race and color and clime, whom together we represent, holding aloft that hope which this nation can still offer if it returns to God, a hope not for itself, but for all of human kind.

God bless.