June 20, 2005

PAMELA CHRISTIAN, HOST: There has been a lot lately in the news about the Democrats working hard to gain the "values voters" and to maintain the black voters that they have within their party. I would like to understand this. If you would like to call in, you're more than welcome.

Howard Dean, the Democratic National Committee Chairman, has been in the news a lot with many of the things he has had to say, and they were not favorable when it came to Republicans. One of the most recent that he said right here in San Francisco, quote, "You know the Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. They are a pretty monolithic party. Pretty much, they all behave the same, they all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party." This is what Howard Dean had to say, representing the Democratic party. Yes, there has been a lot in the news to come out since that, but what's going on here? What's really going on?

Do we have partisan politics at the expense of our country? I think so. I don't see things moving forward in the direction that they should. To help us understand more of what's going on, my first guest tonight is seasoned statesman Alan Keyes. Alan, welcome to Lifeline.

ALAN KEYES: Hi. Glad to be with you. How are you?

CHRISTIAN: Very fine, thank you. And I so appreciate you taking time out of your day with the time difference between Maryland and here. Again, welcome to Lifeline.

There has been so much in the news lately about partisan politics that seems to just be immobilizing our country. The Democrats are obstructing the appointment of John Bolton, who still is, as of tonight, not appointed. They have been obstructing the appointment of judges. There has been so much that has gone on, and all I seem to see is what I would really term, Alan, as some elementary kind of behavior on the part of some adults who are supposed to be leading this nation.

KEYES: Unfortunately--and we particularly see it in the chairman right now of the Democrat party--they have the idea that everyone in the country is as mean-spirited and bad-tempered as they seem to be in pursuit of their ideological agenda, especially after they fared poorly in the last go-round of the election. And I found it very interesting in the comment he made, he actually used the term "Christian" as if it's a pejorative, as if this is something that is exclusionary and awful and confined to this or that particular racial group.

I don't know what planet he is from, but the last time I looked, there were a lot of black Christians, a lot of Hispanic Christians, a lot of Christians of all varieties and persuasions from all over the globe, including a lot who have gathered here in the United States.

The notion that the Republican party is a party that is responding--particularly I think of the moral perspective of Christian people--and that that is somehow an evidence of bigotry is I think evidence of the kind of bigoted mindset that now prevails among the Democrat leadership. They really have become a thoroughly anti-Christian party, committed to an agenda that seeks the destruction of all people of faith.

CHRISTIAN: Now, at the same time that they actually have that mindset--which comes out with the things that they have to say--there is a strident effort underway for the Democrat party to actually woo the values voter.

KEYES: Well, see, I think that we just have to be wary and follow the very good advice of our Lord, that you look at the fruits. Listen to the words, because they are obviously governed now by a desire to get back some of those votes that took away success from them in the last election.

But the reason that was taken away was not based on any racial demographic or any exclusionary elements of the Republican party. All of that is just a lie. The reason that they have been losing support is because they have been championing homosexual marriage; it's because they have been in the forefront of the people who want to kill innocent human beings, including helpless people in comas, such as we saw with Terri Schiavo down in Florida; they have for a long time been the champions of the assault against innocent life in the womb; and, especially devastating to the black community, they have championed all of the stances on issues, moral and otherwise, that represent the breakdown and destruction of the marriage-based family. If anything has been responsible for the deep and terrific social cataclysm that has struck the black community, it is the collapse of the two-parent family.

So, I think the Democrats actually stand for all the policies that are most harmful, especially to people in the black community, including of course the genocidal--and I use the word advisedly--support for abortion.

Black people account for 11% of the population. Close to 40% of the abortions performed in this country are done on black women. Looking at that alone, you realize that we are faced with the kind of holocaust that if it were coming from any other cause, we would recognize it as something that threatens the very future of our entire race.

CHRISTIAN: You know, Mr. Keyes, as we are going through this kind of information--you're talking about how the Democratic party has been the pro-homosexual party, it has been the pro-abortion party, and certainly we're seeing it on the other end with Terri Schiavo, that tragic situation. But the Democrats have also been touted as the party for women.

KEYES: See, I don't see how you can present yourself as a party that somehow is particularly favorable to women, when those things that have traditionally been so important to women in all societies, throughout human history and throughout the world, are precisely the things that the Democrats seek to destroy--the future, for instance, of a secure and stable family life, the future of our children, particularly the next generation for which we are responsible.

It has been especially on the heart of women, I think, to be the guardian of the peace, the security, the civility, the safety of society--particularly for the sake of our children--and I think, sadly, the Democrats have become the champions, particularly on the moral front, of all the things that threaten the values, the conscience, and the institutions that are so important to achieve those results.

CHRISTIAN: I know that you are certainly one in favor of the Republican platform. Would it be fair to say that the Democratic platform is secular humanist, whereas the Republican platform is more people-of-faith?

KEYES: Well, it would be, except I frankly think that would be a little--how can I put it?--euphemistic.

CHRISTIAN: OK.

KEYES: If used, the phrase "secular humanism"--secular implies that somehow you are taking a stand that is indifferent to the divine, not committed to religious faith--I think it has gone farther than that. I think that the stances as we see and the kind of pejorative attacks and language of somebody like Howard Dean, we're dealing now with a party that has veered into the anti-Christian. And unless you are willing to reject all of the biblical values that Christianity is based upon, and just wear the label of Christian so that you can get votes or something, then the Democrats don't want you around.

If you are actually walking in Christ's footsteps, preaching His gospel, trying to follow His word and the law of His Father, then the Democrats are actually assaulting you and trying to curtail your freedom.

We have seen that on a lot of fronts, including the effort to move against kids in high school and elementary school who want to have prayer clubs and groups, and they are trying to tell them that they can't do it on school property--telling them to get the Ten Commandments out of our public buildings, because somehow that remembrance of the moral roots of our society, they believe, must be driven out now.

I think that this has gone beyond a kind of secularism, and has really taken on the guise of an effort to impose on the entire nation an anti-Christian and anti-God agenda.

CHRISTIAN: You're listening to KFAX on AM 1100, the spirit of the Bay. I'm your host Pam Christian, currently visiting with seasoned statesman Alan Keyes. You heard my guest. He's claiming that the Democratic party has moved away from secular humanism and right into the field of anti-Christian. If you're a Democrat and a Christian, I'd like to hear from you. We're taking your calls.

Again, Mr. Keyes, as we consider the Democrat party and their effort to try to not only woo the values voter--I've got a piece in front of me here which I shared at the top of the program, that the liberal Democrats, according to Thomas Sowell, have a strategy to prevent the loss of the black vote, and the way they do that is to keep the blacks paranoid and in a constant state of fear. Can you respond to that?

KEYES: Well, I think we are seeing that as kind of a standard tactic in elections, almost throughout my lifetime. It's one of those things that is so critical to the future of the Democrats that they have got to hold on to 90% of the black vote--if it even dropped to 80 or 75%, they would be in trouble all over the country--so, come election time, they try to point the finger and raise rhetoric about racism and all of this. And yet, we are supposed to ignore the fact that the actual policies that are being promoted by the Democrats are policies that are resulting now in the utter and complete devastation of the social infrastructure, lives, and prospects of people in the black community, in the forefront of policies that are destroying the moral possibility of family life, and that destruction has had the most devastating consequences in the black community.

So, I think they use a rhetoric intended to inspire fear, but also intended to distract black Americans from serious thinking about how the agenda that the Democrats are promoting is, in effect, responsible for a lot of the horrors that we see now in the community.

CHRISTIAN: I couldn't agree with you more. And I think that people are beginning to wake up. At least, in more and more of what I'm reading, people are beginning to wake up, they are beginning to understand what the Democratic party stands for today, and we're seeing the destruction that their policies have waged on our culture, and that's something that has been of great concern to you for quite some time. You've really been one who has been a proponent to not only stop the moral freefall that we see in our culture, but to reverse it.

KEYES: Well, I think it has been particularly important to me especially because of my heritage as a black American.

I wrote a book some years back, Masters of the Dream, in which I talked at length about the Christian heritage in the black community, the importance of that heritage in the survival of black Americans during slavery, the reconstitution of the family and social life after slavery, the survival in spite of oppression and Jim Crow and segregation and economic deprivation. Faith and the moral character founded upon it were critical, in fact, in the ability of black America to endure all of these efforts in a material way to destroy us, which ultimately did not succeed, and finally, to put together the movement that fought for Civil Rights and against the legal structures that were oppressing us.

It's not an accident that in the vanguard of that successful movement, we have the religious leaders of the black community, like Martin Luther King, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. We must not forget that it was faith, and leadership inspired by faith, that in fact made those breakthroughs--an emblem and a reminder of the fundamental importance of the community of faith for black Americans.

So, coming from that perspective, I then looked at policies that were aimed at separating so-called "church and state," driving God out of everything, taking religion away from the schools and away from programs and policies, and I'm thinking to myself that if faith is at the heart of the survival of black people, and you set up a politics in which you have discredited the role of faith, then you have discredited the survival strategy and success strategy of the black community--and that's devastating.

CHRISTIAN: Our whole country was founded on faith and leaders who were inspired by faith, and that is exactly the same basis by which every war has been fought--faith--and what is ultimately our Constitution under God.

KEYES: This is one of the things that has always been hardest for me to understand, because I see--based on what I think, if you examine it--are historical accidents and misapprehensions and a lot of misunderstanding, you have a knee-jerk tendency on the part of many black Americans to vote Democrat, just as there was at one time a knee-jerk tendency on the part of black Americans to vote Republican. Everybody forgets that, but until the election of 1936, I think it was, the majority of black people in America had voted Republican and stood steadfastly with the Republican party.

We need to consult our identity, our values, and we need to look at the results that are being produced by policies and stances in the world, and base our approach on that. And I think we'll start to see some better results than what we have seen from this knee-jerk allegiance--despite the fact that there is a great divergence from the fundamental culture of faith and moral decency, but I think also in spite of a lot of black Americans.

CHRISTIAN: And we need to have a difference. We need to see changes right here in our country.

Why don't you plan on calling in and being part of the program? The number to dial is 888-FOR-KFAX. I'm visiting with Alan Keyes. You know him. He's a godly man, a leader, a true statesman. He can answer any question you might throw at him. And if you are a Democrat, I especially welcome your call. If you are a Christian Democrat, I really want to talk to you. I want to understand how you can be in that party. I really need to understand.

As my guest so eloquently pointed out, it has been the Democrats who have stood for many policies that have been the breakdown of the family and this culture. I'm your host, Pam Christian, and you're listening to AM 1100, the spirit of the Bay, on KFAX.

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CHRISTIAN: Welcome back to KFAX on AM 1100, the spirit of the Bay. I'm your host, Pam Christian, on this Monday edition of Lifeline, and I'm currently visiting with a man that I absolutely honor and esteem, Alan Keyes, a seasoned statesman who spent eleven years with the State Department. He served in the U.S. foreign service, the United Nations General Assembly, and he has even run for president. What was that like, Alan?

KEYES: Well, I think it was exciting, and I hope useful, because it was so important to raise the standard and banner of moral concern that I think was central when I started back in 1996, and has become even more critical to voters in the course of the last several years. So, I have been very gratified to see that that concern has indeed moved front and center in our political arena, as it was in the hearts of many people.

CHRISTIAN: I believe you were the spearhead for that for all of us, as you so bravely took your faith to the frontlines and ran for president. Have you got any future aspirations for new political office?

KEYES: Well, I'm not thinking in terms of politics right now. I've been working on a book to talk about a lot of these issues and the fundamental relationship, really, between moral principle and the success and survival of American institutions. And that will be finished up I hope at the end of this month and out shortly. And I figured then, after that, I will take a little rest and see where God takes me.

CHRISTIAN: Well, we'll look forward to hearing more about your book and having you back on, so that you can help us understand the content of the book when that is available. I'm taking your calls. I'm visiting with Alan Keyes, statesman. You know him. He ran for president.

We're exploring the idea of the Democratic party and how hard they are working to capture the values voter or the faith-based people--Christians, in particular--at the same time, it seems that the Democratic party has a love-hate relationship with Christians. I'd like to hear from you.

Visiting now is Renell. Renell, welcome to Lifeline.

CALLER #1: Ah, hi. I really just want to take a moment to applaud the work that you're doing and the information that you're providing, because I feel like blind faith is as dangerous as blind patriotism, and the information that you're giving is so helpful to the population in general--but I'm wondering how you can reach more of the African-American community so that this information is disseminated in a greater way, so that people really realize our faith roots as part of our heritage.

CHRISTIAN: All right. I'd like to have you answer that, if you could please, Alan.

KEYES: Well, I think that's one of the things that as you know has been greatly on my mind for many years--it's why I wrote my book. It's why I have put such an emphasis on these things in terms of political life. It's why, in the course of my campaigns, I have gone out of my way to make sure that issues that are usually considered too controversial, like the impact of abortion in the black community, and things of this kind, are put on the table and discussed so that people will become more familiar with the facts of the situation.

I have been appalled when I have run, and I have gone and done editorials with the black newspapers in different cities, and found that a lot of people just haven't spoken on the devastating impact, for instance, of abortion on the black community, and the disproportionate effect that it has.

You know, whenever we see disproportion in other respects, in the prison population, and so forth, there are some people who would be the first to stand up and yell "racism." And yet, we have a policy that is leading literally to the extermination of our future in a disproportionate way that is outrageous, and who is paying attention? People act as if it's something we shouldn't talk about.

But I think the caller is right, and what one has to do is have the courage to bring these issues up, to bring the facts before people, because I think the more folks know, the more they will pray and think it's over and realize we have to be looking for better approaches than the ones that are carrying off our babes in the womb, destroying our families, undermining our dedication to moral education--which is the foundation, really, of all educational success, and so forth.

CHRISTIAN: Renell, I think one of the ways that can get the word out to the black community is just a grassroots effort. I'm sure you attend church. You could have speakers such as from Alan Keyes' office come out and speak to men's groups, I'd say especially, to enlighten them. The woman I think are already pretty much involved. We are the ones who are concerned about holding the families together on an emotional level, in another level. Every woman I talk to, anyway, is becoming more and more engaged in the politics of our faith.

KEYES: I certainly would agree with that, because I have found in the course of the work that I have done over the years that the concern for a lot of these issues is especially heavy on the heart of many women in the black community in particular, because they have to live with the tragic effects.

CHRISTIAN: Yes.

KEYES: Seeing their children shot down, seeing the abandonment of home and family by so many men, it has really been women who have borne the disproportionate burden of these collapses, and they know the price that we are paying.

CHRISTIAN: Thank you, Renell, for being part of Lifeline, and I do hope that on a grassroots basis you will take up this gauntlet and see what you can do right within your own community.

CALLER #1: I'll accept the challenge.

CHRISTIAN: Thank you! I look forward to hearing back from you.

All right. Let's go now to Nancy. Nancy is calling in, and Nancy is a Democrat.

CALLER #2: Oh, thank you very much.

CHRISTIAN: Explain to me how it is that you are willing to be a party to the Democrat party, considering their politics, their platform, the things that they stand for. Help me understand.

CALLER #2: [laughs] OK. So, just as if I were a Republican--which I'm not--I would not necessarily endorse absolutely 100% everything that the Republican party stood for, so, too, it is true with the Democratic party. There are other reasons and certainly some issues that I feel aligned with, with the Democratic party, that are of a social nature, that are of an environmental nature, and so I can be OK with that, for one.

And for two, if you're looking to effect change, and if you're looking to be a true soldier for Christ, what better way than to place yourself right in the middle of the minefield.

CHRISTIAN: So, what do you mean by that? Are you in, working with the Democratic party, against homosexuality or against abortion or some of these things that would be inconsistent with the word of God?

CALLER #2: Ah, yes. I am in the Democratic party and I am getting more involved with some of our neighbors who are also Democrats who are assisting with the Democratic marketing campaign that you spoke of. So, by being right there with the plans and with some of the actions and strategies that are being put forth, there is an opportunity to be a light that shines, not just on a more formal kind of grassroots level, you know, for our neighbors' efforts, but certainly within my own friendship circles where people are of all different political affiliations--the Libertarian party, the Green party, Republican and Democrat.

CHRISTIAN: All right, Nancy, hang on. Let me have my guest Alan Keyes respond to you. Alan, how can you respond to my guest, please?

KEYES: Well, I think there are two separate points. The first one has to with the different agendas--and I guess from my point of view it's a question of priority. The Lord said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven," and He basically has told all Christians that our first priority has to be the moral one. Not what clothes you wear, not how much money you've got, but you take care of the moral things and the relationship with God first, and all other things will be given unto you.

And I think that it is quite clear, on every issue that has served moral conscience, the position of the Democrat platform and leadership [is on the wrong side]. And I don't mean that they take it passively. They take it actively, self-righteously, vociferously, even to the point of vituperation against anybody who stands against them. And I have been at the receiving end of that, where I have been vilified because I have taken a Christian stance, and ridiculed because I will stand against things like homosexual marriage.

So, I think that that's the first thing. The whole priority that the Democrats represent right now is an ungodly priority. It's a priority that is not consistent, in my view, with Christian conscience, as Christ clearly articulated. And I think that that poses a problem.

But I think if one is willing to get into the heart of it and work to change their priorities, fundamentally, then there is a role--but it is a hard one, I would think, for people in the Democrat party right now. Though, I would say they are doing a service to the country if they really are fighting that battle, because we cannot afford to have a party that has so utterly abandoned the moral culture that makes us free. And I'd like to see it turned around.

CHRISTIAN: So Nancy, I hope you really can make a difference, at least for those things that have to do with the word of God.

CALLER #2: Well, I hope so, and that's part of the ambition.

CHRISTIAN: Great. I admire that in you. Thank you so much for fighting that good fight.

CALLER #2: Thanks.

CHRISTIAN: OK. Bye-bye.

Now, that's one explanation that I can live with, but there others that I believe, according to my first caller, who are party in the Democratic party, and they really don't understand the depths of depravity that the Democrats have brought onto our culture.

Alan Keyes, how can we make a difference, from our perspective, in any party?

KEYES: I think that the most important thing that we can do is in fact to simply stand consistently in our lives for the beliefs that are professed in us by the presence of Christ and by our faith.

And that applies not just to politics, but applies to family, it applies to work, it applies to everything. It's not going to be easy because sometimes it will mean that you'll have to take tough stands and you'll have to, you know, do things that cause you heartbreak because you're standing where God wants you to stand, and that may separate you from wife, husband, brother, sister, or child, or friends and community. But I think that it's important to remember that that is part of our vocation. To be reviled and despitefully used, for His name's sake, is one of the part and parcels of the Christian vocation.

But I also think there's that promise that it's going to lead to the kind of effect that Christianity has always had in the world, where if we're consistent, then we lead other hearts, and by our example we increase the body of Christ and draw people into that perspective.

And I think we need to do this consistently, starting with our own life, family, church, community--and that transfers of course into politics, in terms of who we support and the leadership role that we ourselves play.

CHRISTIAN: Absolutely. And as you said, that is simply part of being in the family of God, that we would be reviled or insults would be hurled at us, we would be separated from the world. And that's as it should be. We are to be in the world, but not of it.

Masters of the Dream: The Strength and Betrayal of Black America, the book that's still available--and how could we get a copy of that?

KEYES: Well, actually, I'm not sure. I think it's actually out of print.

CHRISTIAN: Oh, no! I thought it was still available.

KEYES: If you contact your bookstore or go on Amazon.com, I know that they always have ways of getting books like that, like Masters of the Dream. So, that's what I would recommend. If you have access to the internet, go to Amazon.com and look amongst the section there where they will get books that are kind of rare and out of print.

CHRISTIAN: All right. But you do have your new book coming out by the end of the month?

KEYES: Well, it will be finished by the end of the month. It won't come out until sometime probably next fall. I'm praying that I will get it all done and they will put it together in time to be on the shelves at Christmas.

CHRISTIAN: We'll certainly look for that, and we'll look for having you back so that we can learn more about your new book and all the other good work that you're doing. Alan Keyes, statesman for more than--I don't know how many years now. How many years have you been doing what you're doing?

KEYES: [laughs] Well, maybe I'll pull a Jack Benny on that one. I can't be more than 39. Am I over 39? [laughs]

CHRISTIAN: [laughs]

I want to thank you. And I want to thank you for spearheading so much of what you have to awaken in those of us who are now being called values voters.

KEYES: I bless the Lord for all the hearts that have joined in over the years and are awakening, and I think it's going to result in great benefits and blessings for America--because that's the form that God's blessing takes. When Christian people and Christian hearts really start to move in a country, that's when God blesses that country. I think God will bless America through these good Christian people.

CHRISTIAN: Amen. Alan Keyes, seasoned statesman and an all-around good guy. I'm so grateful you were part of Lifeline tonight, Alan. Thank you.

KEYES: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

CHRISTIAN: All right. Bye-bye.