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The New York Times

February 17, 2005

The Gay Child Left Behind

Point Foundation Comes Forward

By Dan Savage

SEATTLE: SO far 2005 hasn't been a very good year for gays and lesbians. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings slammed Buster, an animated rabbit, for visiting a Vermont girl with same-sex parents; President Bush renewed his call for an anti-gay amendment to the Constitution; and a deadly new strain of H.I.V. has surfaced.

But there was one bright spot this week. On Monday, Maya Keyes, the daughter of Alan Keyes, officially declared herself a lesbian at a gay rights rally in Annapolis, Md. It was a bit of good news for gays and lesbians, particularly those who are connoisseurs of schadenfreude. Or was it?

Alan Keyes is the Republican who moved to Illinois last year to run against Barack Obama for the United States Senate. To describe Mr. Keyes as an opponent of gay rights is putting it mildly: during his campaign Mr. Keyes described homosexuality as "selfish hedonism." When asked if he thought Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, was a selfish hedonist, he replied, "Of course she is."

Learning that a prominent conservative like Mr. Keyes (or Randall Terry, the anti-abortion-turned-antigay-rights crusader whose son revealed last spring he is gay) has a gay relative is nothing new. Newt Gingrich, for instance, has a lesbian half-sister. But for gays and lesbians there's something particularly satisfying about watching a prominent antigay conservative learn that his or her own child is homosexual. It smacks of cosmic retribution: Mr. Keyes now has to choose between his antigay "pro-family" rhetoric and a member of his own family.

Sadly for Maya Keyes, her father apparently has more affection for his ideology than for his daughter. She says her parents kicked her out of the house and have refused to pay for her education. (Thankfully, some of those evil gay people have come forward to pay her tuition at Brown next year through the Point Foundation.) Perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Cheney could find the time to call Mr. and Mrs. Keyes and explain how parents who actually value their families react when they learn one of their children is gay.

But I can't enjoy this news about Maya Keyes as much as most gays and lesbians. As a parent, you see, I feel Alan Keyes's pain — and Randall Terry's too. I can empathize with their desire not to see their children grow up to be one of us because I live in mortal fear of my child growing up to be one of them.

There are more gay and lesbian couples having families than you may think; according to the 2000 census, there are 250,000 children in the United States being raised by same-sex parents. The debate over gay marriage can be particularly infuriating for us. Allowing gays and lesbians to marry, people like Alan Keyes and Randall Terry argue, would somehow harm children. In Washington a group calling itself Allies for Marriage and Children, co-founded by Jeff Kemp, the son of the former presidential candidate Jack Kemp, advocates a ban on gay marriage.

I live in Seattle with my partner and son. Preventing us from marrying harms my child and does nothing to protect Jeff Kemp's. So in my darker moments I find myself hoping that one day Mr. Kemp will, like Randall Terry or Alan Keyes, find himself listening to one of his children explain that he is gay.

Yet my better angels won't let me wish a gay child on anyone for fear of setting myself up for the gay-parent brand of cosmic retribution that Mr. Keyes brought down on his own head. As the children being raised by gays and lesbians grow into adulthood, it's inevitable that some of them will disappoint their gay parents. One day some prominent gay or lesbian parent — Rosie O'Donnell? Melissa Etheridge? little ol' me? — is going to cringe in horror when Matt Drudge breaks the news that one of our children has become a born-again Christian Republican who condemns his parents for their "selfish hedonism."

If we don't want the same fate to befall us — and I don't — then it's only prudent for us not to take too much pleasure in the plight of Alan Keyes. The next time someone like Maya Keyes comes tumbling out of the closet, we should all try to be gracious and not succumb to our baser instincts. Because one day it's going to be our turn.