The Keyes to the bedroom

When Alan Keyes was carpetbagging for the Illinois Senate seat, his daughter Mara was right there beside him for much of the race. Now, Alan Keyes is a rabid "family values" man, and his daughter is a 19-year-old, out lesbian. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, indeed.

Now the story has taken a rather sad turn:

Now Maya Keyes ... finds herself out on her own. She says her parents ... threw her out of their house, refused to pay her college tuition and stopped speaking to her.

She wrote in her blog last fall, "I'm all about working for global justice. THEY don't care about that. THEY only care that I am an evil dyke."

Although I don't agree with a lot of her politics, you have to feel rather bad for Mara Keyes. It must be incredibly difficult to be disowned by your parents a 19 and have them stop speaking to you. And she must be rather conflicted. She is a vocal activist, and her father is a public figure. How much of this should be played out in public? Does she endanger any future relationship with her family by calling them on their shit?

Fortunately, I have no such personal stake in this matter. And from what I've learned about this, two conclusions can be drawn:

1. "Family values" means disowning your children if you don't like their lifestyle.
2. Alan Keyes is a big fat pig.