Here are some excerpts from an excellent article on Alan Keyes from Alternet.org -
Still Crazy After All These Years.
The article details some of the crazy things Alan Keyes has done and said over the years. It's truly scary. I can't believe this guy is polling 30% in Illinois. I guess it proves some people will vote for anyone as long as they're a Republican.
More to come...
There's so much good stuff, I don't know where to start.
Keyes on abortion
In a May 7 speech in Provo, Utah, Keyes said the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,200 people, were a message from God to oppose abortion: "I think that's a way of Providence telling us, 'I love you all; I'd like to give you a chance. Wake up! Would you please wake up?'" During a campaign appearance in Bedford, N.H., in 2000, Keyes asked a class of fifth-graders, "If I were to lose my mind right now and pick one of you up and dash your head against the floor and kill you, would that be right?" He then went on to tell the children that some courts and politicians think it's OK to murder 6-month-old children.
Keyes on race
In 1992, when he wasn't given a prime speaking spot at the Republican National Convention, Keyes blamed the decision on racism. He ended up speaking twice at the convention, including once in primetime. Because the Republican National Committee withheld financial support for his losing cause, Keyes accused them of racism and complained that in the GOP, "colorblind means that when a colored person walks in, you suddenly go blind."
Running for president, Keyes accused the media of "a blackout to keep the black out." When the media attention to African-American Republican J.C. Watts was pointed out to him, Keyes responded, "The very question is a racist question!" Keyes told the media, "You do to me what you did to my ancestors! You ignore my successes, just as you ignored my ancestors' successes!"
...
When it comes to race, Keyes rejects the idea that any black person - except for Alan Keyes - suffers discrimination. He told Larry King in 2000 that if he were the victim of a "driving while black" police stop, he would fault the "black folks out there disproportionately committing certain kinds of crime."
Keyes on marriage
Gay marriage, Keyes warns, will cause "the destruction of civilizations," and he has equated the "homosexual agenda" as "totalitarianism." In fact, Keyes claims, "Hitler and his supporters were Satanists and homosexuals." To Keyes, "The notion that is involved in homosexuality, the unbridled sort of satisfaction of human passions," leads to totalitarianism, Nazism, and communism.
Says Keyes, "Since marriage is about procreation, and they can't procreate, it is a logical requirement that they can't get married." Never mind that heterosexual couples incapable of or unwilling to have children can get married, or that many gay couples have children. Keyes seems oblivious to this reality: "Homosexuals are not haunted by the prospect or possibility of procreation - because they're simply not capable of it. I think this is pretty obvious, isn't it?"
This is pretty scary stuff. Illinois Republicans couldn't find anyone better than this? Alan Keyes is preferable to a guy that wanted to have sex with his wife in front of an audience?