No 19-year-old deserves to have rumors about her sexual orientation be a subtext to her father’s homophobic senatorial campaign. That wasn’t the first time it was difficult for Maya Marcel-Keyes to be the daughter of Alan Keyes, and it won’t be the last. “Liberal queer plus conservative Republican just don’t mesh too well,” Maya said Monday, disclosing the long-assumed fact of her homosexuality at a gay-rights rally in Maryland.
During his campaign for an Illinois seat in the U.S. Senate last year, Alan Keyes called homosexuality an act of selfish hedonism. “If my own daughter were a homosexual or a lesbian,” he said, “I would love my daughter, but I would tell my daughter that she was in sin.”
Maya Marcel-Keyes said Monday that her father’s private stance toward her sexual orientation has been consistent with his public statements. That heavily freighted sentence hints at the powerful forces that can smash apart a family. Just a few months ago, she worked on her father’s campaign. Last week, she said, her father told her to leave his apartment, and he won’t pay for her college tuition because of her sexual orientation and liberal activism.
Perhaps two other powerful forces–the passage of time, the realization that we don’t have one another forever–will permit a healing.
For those on the outside, this is a story of family members who hold unusually fervent beliefs. They speak their beliefs to the world. They worry not about how others will view those beliefs.
Maya Marcel-Keyes has made a strong move.
Think what you will of Alan Keyes.
He and his wife raised an impressive daughter.
