WAUKEGAN, Ill. — Earlier this month Alan Keyes replaced Jack Ryan on the ballot as the Illinois Republican candidate for United States Senate. Ryan quit the race after the unsealing of his embarrassing divorce records. In what promises to be a fascinating race between two Harvard-educated politicians, Keyes now faces liberal Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who observers consider a rising star in the party after his keynote address in Boston.
While a candidate for Senate, Keyes also opposes presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry. No, Keyes is not making another bid for the presidency in this election cycle. However, Keyes in many ways serves as the political antithesis to Kerry, particularly on the important social issues of this election.
For example, Kerry was one of only 14 senators who voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress in 1996 and subsequently signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Keyes has had a long track record of supporting family values, including traditional marriage.
Kerry also supports human cloning and using federal money to promote fetal stem-cell research, even implying that President George W. Bush does not believe in science. Worse, Kerry voted six times against banning partial-birth abortion, an awful procedure in which an unborn baby gets partially delivered feet-first before a “doctor” crushes the skull, causing the abortion.
Keyes entered the race for several reasons, but primary among them was Obama’s disturbing record on sanctity of life issues, including his April 2002 vote against protection for live babies born of botched abortions. And although Keyes has already spent much of his life working to end abortion and other violations against human life, he saw this as yet another opportunity.
While Kerry and Keyes oppose each other on these issues, they both consider themselves Catholic. This begs the question: With polar opposite views on such important issues, how can they both consider themselves Catholic? The short answer: They cannot.
In fact, along with euthanasia, these issues are considered non-negotiable to the point that Catholic politicians who publicly advance them through legislation are separated from the Catholic Church until sincere, public repentance is made. The church also wants war, capital punishment, and certain other events minimized, but does not unequivocally condemn them the way it does abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, and same-sex marriage, which are morally wrong on face. Without a right to life, no other rights are possible, and the church further understands that many societal problems stem from family breakdown.
Kerry stated that he considers himself a man of faith, but that he does not “wear [his] own faith on [his] sleeve.” In other words, he accepts the general love-of-neighbor principle as most everyone does but rejects the church’s teaching on the more controversial issues.
Keyes is one of the few exceptional politicians that have not succumbed to the political correctness that has silenced others, particularly Catholics, seeking public office. As Rush Limbaugh put it, “I think 90 percent of the people who listen to Alan Keyes know in their hearts he’s right, but they don’t want to reorder their lives to live that way.”
Writing as a contributor to The Wanderer, a weekly Catholic newspaper, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Thomas Roeser drew an interesting connection between the Abraham Lincoln- Stephen Douglas Senate race and the Keyes-Obama showdown currently underway. Roeser said, “Here, the Lincoln-Douglas debates are a stirring example. Abraham Lincoln was by no means the firebrand for abolitionism that Keyes is for life, but in debating Sen. Stephen A. Douglas he stirred the nation’s conscience. Lincoln lost the U.S. Senate election but went on to national reputation and glory. In Illinois, it is fair to say, the cause of life now has its greatest opportunity ever to become a front-centered issue.”
This election cycle will provide a good indication as to whether Americans can still stomach a candidate who embraces Christianity, particularly Catholicism, in its entirety, and extends those beliefs to his campaign. If they can, this will embolden politicians of the future to engage in much-needed conversations on important social issues.
Mark Baumgardner ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in electrical engineering.