'Homosexuals Are Destroying America'
The coming out of his own daughter has not softened former Ambassador Alan Keyes' position on gays and same-sex marriage.
The conservative broadcaster and failed senate candidate delivered a scathing attack gay marriage at a Christian rally in St Augustine, Florida.
"Marriage exists in order to respect, recognize and enforce obligations that arise from the fact of procreation," Keyes said in his keynote address at ProFamily Rally 2005.
He then declared that heterosexual couples who choose not to have children do not hurt the institution, but a gay union would annihilate it.
"It's like a wooden iron. It doesn't make any sense," he said.
To cheers and shouts of "Amen", Keyes attacked this week's ruling in San Francisco that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry. (story) Keyes told the crowd of nearly 1000 that "one lonely judge comes along and says 'No. That's not how its going to be.'"
He told the audience that allowing a judge to rule that same-sex couples can marry is a form of tyranny.
Keyes also said he does not see that there is a separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution, noting that laws incorporate biblical values.
A group of about a dozen LGBT demonstrators stood silently near the stage. One wore a shirt that read "Hatred is not a family value."
Keyes went down to a crushing defeat when he ran for the GOP against Barack Obama in Illinois last November.
The former conservative talk show host who was parachuted into Illinois to run for the GOP became a thorn in the side of Republicans because of his extreme anti-gay statements.
But, his most incendiary remarks came at the Republican National Convention when 365Gay.com commentator Michelangelo Signorile interviewed him for his Sirius radio show. (story)
Keyes said that homosexuality is "selfish hedonism." Signorile then asked Keyes, the GOP candidate for the US Senate in Illinois, whether he considered Mary Cheney, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, a "selfish hedonist."
"Of course she is," Keyes replied. "That goes by definition. Of course she is."
Following Tuesday's speech in St Augustine Keyes refused to discuss his relationship with his own daughter.
Keyes' daughter came out last month at a Valentines Day demonstration in support of gay marriage in Maryland. (story)
It was Maya Marcel-Keyes first public appearance as a gay activist. Marcel-Keyes said her parents have thrown her out of the house, stopped speaking to her and refuse to pay for college because she is a lesbian.