MP3 audio

Alan Keyes
March 29, 1999

Keynote address

Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Not only am I very glad to be here, votes or no votes, but I am deeply inspired to be here as well, because I think that it's always good to be wherever God is at work. And when you can feel Him leaning as close as He is leaning here, that's especially good. I know He's around all the time, but there are times when we are more aware of it than at other times, and it is beautiful, indeed.

And so I am thankful to be with you, and I hope I will be able to say a word or two that will be worthwhile. I'm not entirely sure, as I was thinking about this, exactly what it is that I have to offer, but what I'm going to try to do is put the whole issue of homosexuality (which you certainly understand at a level of personal experience far better than I can) in the context of the challenge that we are facing today as Americans, and the challenge that we, in fact, are facing today as human beings--so that perhaps we can together appreciate the fact that this is not simply a travail that you go through as individuals, but it is rather the reflection and the product of the travail which we are going through as a people.

Indeed, I think that if we understand it rightly, in every struggle in human history, there are folks who are, as it were, on the front lines. We can see that easily when battles are going on with the bombs and the bullets, and so forth, the way they are over in Europe right now. You know that the folks who are flying the planes, and the folks who are on the ground being blown up, they are on the front lines of the struggle. When the struggle is a matter of moral and spiritual conflict, however, it's sometimes not so easy to appreciate the fact that the people who are, in fact, on the front lines--the folks who are suffering the slings and arrows of that conflict--are walking the streets, and living in the house next door, and sleeping in the bedroom down the hall. Because it is we, ourselves, who must confront the spiritual struggle that is at the heart of what will save or lose both our country and, I believe, the generations of the human race that we here represent.

It's one of the reasons why I think that there are two major moral issues that confront this country today. They, both of them, are issues of life and death. And they, both of them, are issues of life and death, not only for the body, but especially for the soul, for the spirit. And that is abortion, in which we kill the body of a child and the soul of its mother; and homosexuality, which is, if we understand it, the weapon--indeed, in some sense I think it is the thermonuclear device--that is aimed at the soul of America.

And not just of America as this or that country, but as the representative of the civilization that, in the end, was built upon the insights which were brought to this world by our Savior, Jesus Christ. We are in a great struggle now between those who are still drinking of the rich grace of God to keep alive the heritage, in human life, of our Lord's coming, and those who are seeking, as they always have, to destroy it.

I think that homosexuality, the promotion of homosexuality, is about that struggle. And what's saddest is that, as in every war, there are folks who are causing it, and folks who are benefiting from it, and then there are just folks who are destroyed by it--folks who are being pushed, and pulled, and used, and abused, in every possible way; used and abused in their souls, in the deepest possible way, in order to achieve the objectives of the war.

See, I, sadly, believe that that is what is true of the population of homosexuals in America, of lesbians, of the families and friends of folks who are touched by this. It is not just a path that you walk alone, and it is not just a path that you walk because of these things that have happened to you and in your life. Yes, that is true, but there's more to it than that, because today we have to ask ourselves not only why it happens to individuals, but why is it that everywhere we turn now, it is being promoted. It is being preached as almost like a new gospel, isn't it?

And indeed, in some respects, I remember thinking of this some years back when they had the Academy Awards, and I think it was--what was it called?--the Philadelphia Story. And--I can't remember his name now--Tom Hanks was up. It reminded me, as I watched it, of a canonization. In a peculiar kind of way, you were looking at a certain kind of a religious ideology that was being presented, and here were the secular saints of this ideology--the martyrs, as it were--being elevated to sainthood before this crowd. And these were the folks who are under the shadow of death as a result of the promotion of sexual licentiousness.

I think it would be wrong of us to believe that that is simply a matter for people who are in the homosexual lifestyle. This is not true. The promotion of sexual licentiousness is rampant throughout this society. It is one of the most important goals of those who are seeking, they say, to "transform"--I believe, to "destroy"--our civilization and our way of life.

In that respect, though, homosexuality and lesbianism become the paradigm of that understanding both of human nature, and of human sexuality--which they must promote.

Now, I want to talk a little about both today, because I think it's terribly important that we understand that there is more to this than what is happening to individuals. I think that there is an agenda at work that has to do with an effort to redefine our understanding of human beings and human nature, in such a way that certain fundamental concepts--including the concept of freedom, for instance, which has been so important to America over the course of the last couple hundred years--will be utterly transformed; destroyed, in effect, in order to make way for concepts that will justify a consolidation of power over humanity, putting control in the hands of fewer and fewer people, so that they can construct, I guess, what they believe is some sort of utopian future for the rest of us.

I think that the issues of sexuality are all involved in the work of transforming our understanding of ourselves, in order to make that consolidation of power possible. And one of the prerequisites of it, of course, is that you've got to convince people not just that freedom is difficult, not just that freedom can be sacrificed as a burden--you know, we've talked about all those things in the history of our country--you have got to convince people that, in fact, the real understanding of freedom is contrary to human nature, that it is not possible for human beings to be free.

And in order to do that, what do you have to do? You have to radically transform our understanding of ourselves, because there is an understanding that has been given to us by the grace of God, that was instilled in us by Him--written, as it were, with His finger upon our hearts and impressed upon our very being. It represents, in some ways, the enormous, the incredible, both wisdom and mercy of God--this freedom which He has endowed us.

I've been much given to thinking about it lately, as I survey the things that we human beings are doing, because it's remarkable how we want to go one better than God. There are so many people in the world who think that they could have gotten it better than He did. They look over the world, and they say, "Look at all these terrible things that have happened. How could a good god let this happen? He must be terrible. I can do better." And yet, when you actually look at what it turns out we do, we end up being what God refused to be. We end up being tyrants. Have you ever thought about that? I mean, here you have an all-powerful God, right? Absolutely nothing that does not respond to, that in fact is not constituted by, His will. And yet, in a very fundamental way, when it comes to us, He is actually willing not only to back off, but He's actually willing to lend us His power so that we can make choices. Don't you think that's remarkable? Can you imagine any human being doing that? Having total power over you, and then, instead of abusing it, actually backing off and lending you that power so that you can make choices--even choices which you believe are against His will?

The remarkable thing about that is, He thought it was so important for us to be free that He even allowed for the possibility, in Adam and Eve--those creatures which had no reason whatsoever to want of anything--He still left for the possibility that, at the end of the day, they could turn around and give in to the delusion that they be without Him. And so sadly, they did.

And there was a price to pay for their wrong exercise for that freedom. But there was also a tremendous truth represented, by that fact that God had in His wisdom that it's so important that we should be respected in the possibility of that true liberty, that He actually allowed the possibility of sin--so that that kind of true understanding of Him would be possible.

I think it's one of the things that represents His effort to offer us the greatest gift. And if you think about it, it is deeply connected with the issues of human sexuality. I know we don't much--because folks don't dwell on Genesis the way they really ought to. But it is no accident whatsoever that the original sin arises in the context of male and female--not, by the way, necessarily in the simpleminded way that some people try to interpret Genesis, but in a profoundly important way. The sexual distinction actually, if you read it carefully, represents the perfection of our humanity. Have you realized that? Fascinating, Genesis, in this regard. Because, you've probably often heard that if you read through Genesis, the creation of man actually takes place over several days. It's not like other creations. Most of the other things God created, He does it this day, and it's finished that day. He starts man on the third day, forms us from the clay and breaths into us. And then, He goes through a kind of a process. Part of that process involves Adam naming all of the animals that are brought before him, remember that? I think he names all the classes of animals--except, by the way, the ones that live in the sea. That's important; think about that someday. Not today, though. [laughter]

Anyway, He brings the animals before Adam, and Adam doesn't find anybody there like himself--remember that?--and it is as a consequence of that that God puts him to sleep and creates Eve. In that passage, we watch the Bible telling us this is where the gender distinction comes from--the one that they're destroying today. And if you think about that truth, what you realize is, at the beginning of that process in Genesis, a formula is used on the third day for the creation of man that is like the formula that is used for the creation of other animals. Then, by the sixth day, after God has created woman, what does He say? He only says it then, He doesn't say it before then. On other days, when He creates the light and the darkness, at the end of that very day, He sees it and He says, "That's good." When He creates the animals that fly and the ones that walk, He sees it on the same day, and He says that it's good. He starts man on the third day, but He doesn't say we're good until, when? Until the sixth day, until after the woman is created. Then the formula is used, then the formula is used that that's good, and then the Bible tells us: male and female He created them, in the image and likeness of God created He them.

I wonder sometimes why we don't realize what is being told us in that passage. The gender distinction is not, according to our faith, incidental. It is absolutely fundamental to our humanity. And it is as a consequence of that distinction that God looks at us and the formula is used in Genesis that we are in the image and likeness of God. Do you realize what that implies? It implies that apart from this distinction, our humanity was not perfected in God's image. Isn't that awesome? That is awesome!

I mean, we start to understand that, and we start to understand why it is that we should only approach topics of human sexuality with a sense of awe, with a sense that we approach truly what is sacred about our humanity--because something in this distinction, something in the relationship that it makes possible; something that we experience, see, learn, become, as a consequence of this relationship in fact brings us to that point where we, in our way, perfect the image that God meant to stamp upon us.

That means, of course, that if you turn away from that, what are you turning away from? If you turn away from the gender distinction, if you turn away from that relationship which was constituted right there at the beginning as the foundation of the perfection of that image of God, which is in our humanity, then you are turning away from God. You are in effect, I believe, repeating the original sin that racked us with this fallen nature.

It's deep. And that means, as well, that if you promote this turning away, you have not just declared war upon sexual discipline, you have declared war upon the image of God in your own life. And that's, I believe, profoundly what this is about. But that declaration of war also then involves, what? It involves, if we think of it, a surrender of that precious gift of freedom that in fact was there in the beginning, and that made possible the choice that Eve made to our bane, but which God allowed for His glory.

And that has profoundly important consequences for us today in America, in particular. Because in a way that I think is both wonderful and beautiful--it's part of why I do what I do in American political life--I think we live in a country that was especially dedicated to one of the important truths about God's relationship with our humanity. If you go back to the beginning of the nation's life, where it says, "All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," that notion that our liberty comes from the hand of God, that it is not a consequence of human choice, that in fact our claim to our dignity and respect in our persons has a transcendent foundation. It is not the consequence of our education, our power, our wealth, or even the strength of our communities, but rather, it rests on the transcendent will and power of Almighty God.

That understanding, and the understanding that all human powers, including the coercive powers and awesome powers made possible by our human communities through government, they must all of them be tempered by the same respect for human liberty that God, Himself, showed. That is to say, we must make our communities so that the laws are based upon that same respect for human liberty and worth that God, Himself, in His incredible restraint has always been willing to show. This is amazing. It makes us, I believe, in some ways, a profoundly unique civilization. Profoundly unique because it's not all that often that human beings actually manage to acknowledge truth even in their individual lives, much less in their lives as a society. You've got to know this.

But it was so done here. But I believe also that that acknowledgment of human worth and dignity, it comes in the context of, what? In the context of acknowledging the authority of God. Isn't that right? So you acknowledge God's authority, and as a consequence of acknowledging God's authority, you can lay claim to your own freedom. The two things go hand in hand. You stand on solid ground in your demand that your worth and freedom be respected, because that solid ground is the ground of God's power, not human power; God's will, not human will; God's authority, not human authority. And once that acknowledgment is made, then you are also in the presence of the true, the right understanding of freedom--a right understanding which becomes possible because true freedom only exists in the context of God's authority, as a consequence of the acknowledgment of that authority.

It is as the apostle said. It is by allowing the law to dwell within us that we, in essence, become free from the coercive bondage of the law. We do not need its external constraint, because dwelling within us, it becomes and informs the substance of our choices and our laws. And that is true liberty--liberty that is impossible, of course, outside the context of our acknowledgment of God.

I say all of that in order for us to realize what is actually going on today in the promotion of the homosexual agenda. It is not just about sexual libertinism in the superficial sense of the term. It is not just about trying to liberate people from this or that convention that has dominated in human societies over time and in the past. No. It is about something far more profound than that. It is about the rejection of God's authority in the context of human society, so that the very idea of human liberty becomes an absurdity.

Now, I think that this is true at a very practical level. It's true in what, in fact, homosexuality represents to us in a pure form, but that all sexual libertinism actually represents to us in some form or other, and that is bondage. Bondage. A kind of slavery. But a slavery that is rooted not just in the arbitrary will of other human beings, but rather in our own subservience to our natural passions; to the law that, as the apostle says, is in our members.

Now, the beauty of it is that because of God's grace, our nature is such that the law in our members is not the only law. We have, by the grace of God and through His revelation and through our Lord, we have access to that which will free us from the constraints of that law, and allow us to live according to the higher law that comes from our direct relationship with God. But what the whole culture of sexual bondage is about these days is destroying that logic; reintroducing us to an understanding of our human nature which excludes the possibility of God's existence, and therefore of God's grace. And by excluding the possibility of God's grace, it subjects us, in fact, to an inevitable bondage. Inevitable.

See, it's one of the things that I often find interesting about the discussion today. Because folks will come forward--they've been at great pains to try to demonstrate, to prove somehow, that folks who have an inclination sexually to be attracted to people of the same sex are doing so as a result, we are told, of some kind of biologically or genetically determined predisposition. Right?

Now, two things are true: one, if we look at our experience, that seems to be a very highly questionable statement. But two, let us for a moment, just for the sake of argument, let's say that it's true. What I've often wondered, though, is why they think it makes such a big difference. I'm serious. After all is said and done, the law in our members always inclines us to do things without regard for responsibility. The law in my members inclines me to look around every room I walk into, see every woman who's sexually attractive, and believe somewhere in my members that that's appropriate for me. It announces itself as, "Yep, that's for you." Now, at the level of real truth and civilization and God's will, we know that's not true. But at the level of the law that operates in our members, it is true. It's not just true by the way of homosexuals; it's true of all people. We have lust within our bodies, and that lust is not inclined to respect the constraints of reason, civilization, and responsibility. It never has been.

And so, the fact that you tell me that there is this endemic inclination in a group over here for a certain type of sexual activity--well, that's true of all of us. Why does it make such a big difference there?

At some level, one of the definitions of our humanity is that that particular nature, as someone once said, is what we are put in this world to rise above. Some of us have to rise above it in one way, others of us have to rise above it in another way, but we all have to do so. For some, it is a matter of a certain kind of sexual passion, maybe a passion for more women than you should have, maybe a passion for people of the same sex, maybe a passion for children. In others, by the way, it won't be a sexual passion. Maybe it'll be an irascible temper, an inclination to get angry, to be resentful, to be jealous. All of these passions have the same characteristics. They all of them are imperialist, they all of them seek to enslave--and they all of them announce themselves with a force and power that is irresistible. I want to emphasize that.

I happen to deeply believe that the force and power of natural passion is irresistible to human beings. It is. Left to our own devices, we would always succumb. We are not strong enough to deal with it.

So, if folks come forward and they say, "Well, we've got this group of homosexuals here, and they're not strong enough to deal with their sexual inclination," I look at that and I say, "Well, what else is new?" None of us are strong enough to deal with our sexual inclinations. None of us are strong enough to deal with our anger, none of us are strong enough to deal with our jealousy, none of us are strong enough to deal with our resentments. The fallacy that's involved in all of this is that we can stand alone against the force of nature--and we can't. But if we succumb to the delusion that this is what is required of us, you know what is inevitable, don't you? Slavery. In some form or another, we must succumb to the bondage of our natural inclinations if we [are alone] against those inclinations. We are not strong enough.

Do you realize what force there is in them? The same power that operates in the storm, the same power that is there in the volcano, the same power that is there in the tides is that power which is represented in the natural law that operates within our members. Is there someone in this room who thinks they're strong enough to command the tide? Strong enough to stop the power of the volcano? Strong enough to make the winds cease in the storm?

See, I think that the illusion that is at the heart of a lot of this is, in the end, not a delusion about sexuality or about sexual passion. It is a delusion about human nature, itself--and that delusion rests upon this fundamental premise: we stand alone; and what we cannot do on our own cannot be done.

Now, "on our own" can mean on our own from an individual point of view, right? But then they'd say, "Well, you're not on your own from an individual point of view, because we can gather 'round, we can make communities, we can join hands together. And by standing and making a common front in favor of this passionate inclination, we will somehow liberate ourselves."

At the heart of the whole movement--not only with respect to homosexuality, but abortion and radical sexual promiscuity--is the same belief that as individuals we can't stand alone as we succumb to this power, so if we put our hands together, that will somehow give us the ability to go ahead and surrender without being destroyed. Is this true? Sad to say, it turns out not to be. But it does at its heart represent the other radical assertion of human self-sufficiency. Not the self-sufficiency of individuals--because at the end of the day, what happens at the individual level is that we start to feel more and more helpless; more and more helpless in the face of our passions and our inclinations, more and more desperate, more and more in need of a power greater than ourselves. And in the context of a world in which we human beings are supposed to be self-sufficient, where do we find that power? We will find it in the group, we will find it in the force and power of the society, we will find it in the law.

And so, this whole business pushes more and more into the direction of consolidated power, controlled societies, where the insecurity that is produced by our sense of helplessness in the face of our passions leads us to throw ourselves upon the mercy of an ever more powerful society in all its various forms, believing that we cannot stand alone.

So what's the way out? If you see the world in these terms, it would appear that we have a choice between individual slavery in the bondage of our passions, or general slavery to governments and societies that are ruled by some form of coercive control--because we can't control ourselves; can't control our passions.

It is here that I think that the scripture offers the right answer. When it tells us that where sin abounds, what? Grace does more abound. What does that mean? Well, it means, very simply, that you're not on your own. See, I believe in the face of our passions, we are helpless by ourselves. But we are not by ourselves! We could not even be here if we were by ourselves. The delusion that, somehow or another, it is possible for us to exist apart from God is, in one sense, I believe, the essence of that original sin which in the first place had us cast out of God's intended paradise. It was because we got the sense that somehow or another we could exist separate from God, that there was some boundary where we stopped and God began--it was that notion which led Adam and Eve, by the way, I think, to feel so naked after they had eaten of the fruit. They felt their nakedness because they had surrendered for the first time to the delusion that there was a separation between them and God--that such a separate existence was possible for them.

That delusion, that we can live separate from God, that it is possible for there to be some boundary where we stop and God begins, that therefore we are on our own when confronted by the awesome power which is the consequence of His creation, that is the lie, that is the delusion that is not only at the heart of the homosexual agenda, it is at the heart of that agenda of bondage and slavery which is threatening to destroy us today in this country. And there is only one way that we are going to turn it around, and that's to get back to the truth.

The beauty of it is, of course, that as a society--as I just reminded you--we are actually founded on the truth. It's the beauty part about it. We have to willfully turn our backs on everything in our heritage, turn our backs not only on the Bible and the scriptural truth, we have to turn our backs even on the secular statements of our heritage in order to succumb to this darkness. Because right there in those statements was the clear pronouncement that our justice, that our rights, that our liberty--it's all grounded in the will and the authority of the Creator, God. We cannot hope to exist apart from it.

Now, that being the case, I believe that the struggle that we witness in our society today on the moral front is therefore a struggle of the most profound importance for the future of our society. Just as in the case of abortion, we are dealing with something that on the one hand involves the taking of innocent life in the womb, but on the other also involves the destruction of conscience, the hardening of heart in our society to such a degree that we destroy our capacity to be decent citizens. The same is true, I believe, with respect to sexual libertinism--sexual libertinism, both in its heterosexual form, but also in that form which actually presents it to us in its sort of ideal type. That's why, by the way, I believe that homosexuality is so promoted in this society, because it reads back to us the ultimate statement that is being made in the context of the so-called sexual revolution. And what statement is that? It's a statement that this activity exists only for our sake; that on all sides, it is simply a matter of our gratification.

See, the beauty of the truth is that in the sexual distinction, as God intended it, there is always the implication of a third party. We can think of that third party as the child that might result from the union, but that's not the only thing. Conceptually, there's always a third-party. Where you have male and female, you still have human being. Implied, therefore, in the distinction there is a unity, so that in our being in relation to each other, we reproduce that truth which is the mysterious truth of God, Himself. For as He's so also in us, there is the Trinity--the truth that in the presence of distinct persons, there is yet one God. In the presence of difference, there is yet a fundamental unity.

This is what is denied at a fundamental level by the assertion of homosexuality as the paradigm of human sexuality. And that's what it is, by the way. That's why I say that folks who are struggling with this, you all who are struggling with it in your lives, you're actually right there on the front lines. I wish you could understand the extent to which you stand right in the forefront of this battle; right in the very forefront. For that with which you struggle is, in fact, being presented to us as the very paradigm of human sexuality--sexual activity that exists only in order to gratify the parties involved, that has no transcendent dimension which goes beyond us, which goes beyond our needs, which points in the direction of that eternal unity that we can only in our own inadequate way reproduce, but which ultimately is the will, the power, the gift of Almighty God.

And as we are lured into the realm in which we accept the profane understanding of our sacred sexual nature, we are lured to look at the world, not with the eyes that we were intended (eyes that understand and see in it the work and glory of God), but rather with eyes that no longer can feel the Spirit, no longer can sense the presence of Its truth--and in consequence of that loss, feel an emptiness, a loneliness, a solitude that we so desperately seek to avoid, that we will fling ourselves with a will into idolatry and bondage and tyranny, in the hope that somehow we shall find relief for this loneliness.

But there is no relief for it, not in human terms, because it is the loneliness that announces in our lives the presence of God, and that can only be relieved when we recognize and acknowledge that presence.

This is, I think, the wonderful truth of Christ's redemption of all of us: that God so loved us that He didn't want us to live with this delusion forever, so He sent Christ down here so that we wouldn't be able to avoid it anymore. We couldn't live in this darkness anymore, because He's right there. Anytime you are ready, turn around, He's right there, a living presence that you can see and hear, and feel the touch and love and mercy of God as the truth of life.

I believe, therefore, that if we're ultimately to save this country from the consequences of this awesome delusion, we can only do so when we are willing, with honesty, and clarity, and love, to acknowledge that which is at the heart of these sexual challenges; to see that they are not just about sex, they are not just about our emotions, they are not just about our situation in solitude. No. They are profoundly about the struggle that exists in this world today between those who are seeking to define our human existence apart from God, and those who understand that there can be no human being apart from His love, and His mercy, and His saving grace through Jesus Christ.

And so, I hope that with these words such as they were, I'm trying, I guess, to convey a simple point. I know that there are times for all of us when, in what's going on in our society, we can reach that point where we think that all is lost, it's pretty hopeless, everything's against us, and so forth and so on. Whether it's at an individual level or otherwise, it can get pretty grim. But I hope that in the midst of all of that, you will sometimes remember that the pain you feel, and the tears that you shed, and the prayers that you pray for your loved ones and for their salvation, are also the pain, and the tears, and the prayers that are shed and prayed in order that this nation may be made whole. As truly as any patriots on the battlefields of freedom, you fight now on the front lines of that struggle for our rightly-understood liberty, through which alone this nation will be saved.

Not as it was in the past, perhaps, with big battles joined and read about in the newspapers, but with the little battles won, the battles that bring one person from the darkness, that bring one person back from the delusion of this solipsism of lost truth, and that reconstitute, as a result, our true relations--husband to wife, parents to children, brother to brother, to sister, to friend--so that we can in these relationships rediscover that which, if we had never forgotten it, we would never had lost: true paradise. All of these relations, whatever they may be, are but one word, and that word is our God.