MP3 audio

Alan Keyes
May 8, 2004
Utah Republican State Convention

The following speech was given to 5,000 delegates and GOP leaders at the 2004 Utah Republican State Convention. In the speech, Dr. Keyes nominated Utah State Senator Parley Hellewell for governor.

Thank you very much. It's my honor to come before you today to put before you a nomination of the name of Parley Hellewell for governor of Utah.

Now, since I'm not from Utah, some of you will be wondering why I make bold to do that. I make bold to do it, not because I know what is good for Utah, but because I know what good Utah could do for America, in this time of our greatest crisis, in this time of our greatest need--and I am not sure we appreciate it.

In the course of the next year, issues will be decided that will preserve or destroy the moral foundations of this country. Next week, Massachusetts will begin performing same-sex marriages, and within months in every state in this union, there will be a challenge to the marriage-based family like nothing we have ever seen before.

Already, our courts have launched an assault on our right to reverence God, to declare His name, to reflect His will in our laws, in Alabama and every state in the United States.

The moral crisis is not ongoing, the moral crisis is not coming, the moral crisis is being decided, and the question is, what will it take to preserve the moral future of our land?

Well, this I know: all it will take for freedom to perish is that Utah do nothing!

For, this is a state, above any other in this country, where the people of Utah are committed to the conscience, to the faith, to the moral values, to the moral decency that have made this nation strong and free.

In the battle that is to come, Utah could be the last, the shining example, the voice of conscience that I believe God in His providence in every travail, and in every trouble, has prepared the state to be!

And now is the time when the heart, and the voice, and the conscience of Utah is needed as a light for this whole land to stand with courage against those who mean to destroy the moral heart of our freedom.

The question is, when the judge comes and says to the state of Utah, "You must perform same-sex marriages, and give approval to that which God says is sin," when the judge comes and says, "You must take down the Ten Commandments, and show our disrespect for the law and authority by which we have claimed our freedom in the Declaration," the question of Utah right now is who will sit in the governor's chair. It is not a question of who will bring the jobs, or who will limit the government, but who in that moment will look the judges in the eye and, upholding the Constitution and the religious liberty of people in this state and across the land, will say no, and stand there until justice is served!

I am here today because I believe with moral certainty that we can trust only those voices who will say no then because they say no now, who will stand for truth then because they stand for it now! They have not put it last, but put it first on the agenda of their concern for Utah and the people of this country!

Such a voice, such a man, is Parley Hellewell, and supporting him is not just a gift for Utah. In this time of crisis, it will be a gift for the survival of our nation, the survival of its conscience, the survival of its liberty!