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February 14, 2005

Maya Keyes Officially Comes Out

By Byron LaMasters

Via Political Wire is news that Maya Keyes, daughter of anti-gay Republican firebrand Alan Keyes officially came out of the closet today. Maya's personal blog was discovered by bloggers back in September, but Maya only made the decision to publicly come out of the closet at a rally today.

Two weeks ago, Maya was thrown out of her home, lost her job with her father's political organization, and told by her parents that they would not pay her college expenses (Maya was accepted into Brown University for the Fall 2004, but deferred in order to volunteer for her father's U.S. Senate campaign).

When I heard of Maya's situation, I hoped that some GLBT organization would come to her aid, and offer her money for her education. Fortunately, today The Point Foundation did just that:

Maya Marcel-Keyes, the daughter of Alan Keyes, a conservative political commentator who recently lost his bid for an Illinois Senate seat, came out publicly for the first time at a rally in Annapolis, MD today. Disowned by her family because of her sexual orientation, Maya is receiving support from The Point Foundation. Keyes has been accepted to Brown University in Providence R.I., and the Point Foundation is committed to helping the 19-year old with an honorarium scholarship and other emotional and financial support.

Good for them. Maya accepted the support at a rally in front of the Maryland State House today:

Keyes spoke at a rally organized by Equality Maryland, Maryland's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) advocacy organization, which occurred in front of the Maryland State House to coincide with the organization's annual lobby day on February 14. Other speakers included Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard and Executive Director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, as well as several state and local community officials.

The situation is still sad and unfortunate. Maya Keyes is lucky to have a semi-celebrity status because of the well-documented, militantly anti-gay rhetoric and actions of her father, but it's important to note that for every scholarship that The Point Foundation gives out, they have to decline thirty others. This is their mission statement:

Scholarship opportunities for exceptional students, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Point Foundation is the first and only nationwide LGBT scholarship organization that focuses exclusively on granting assistance to undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students of distinction. Point Scholars are chosen for their demonstrated leadership, scholastic achievement, extracurricular activities, involvement in the LGBT community and financial or emotional need.


You can help them do more by donating here.

Posted by Byron LaMasters at February 14, 2005 07:05 PM | TrackBack


Comments

Alan Keyes is just disgusting. Imagine the self-loathing at the very core of his identity. He's a black man who thinks his people are inferior, an affirmative action beneficiary who thinks atoning for past racism is wrong, and a hyper-Christian homophobe whose daughter just came out of the closet. I'd almost feel sorry for him if his utter and willful failure to understand what the New Testament is all about wasn't his undoing.

Posted by: Boddhisattva at February 14, 2005 07:57 PM

Folks, I'm going off topic here. Question for the legal eagles here: What do y'all think of SCOTUS's finding in 1960 "Flemming v. Nestor"? Just wondering?

Posted by: peter at February 14, 2005 10:44 PM

Oh, nice way to bring Social Security into this, peter.

I just recently did a report on this issue. From what little knowledge I am humble to possess, Flemming's holding is obviously the correct one given everything we know about the construction of statutes. If we construed every government benefit to confer a non-defeasable vested property right, it'd be very problematic any time you wanted to reform the system, because you'd have a taking.

The alternative, of course, (and the one posited by the holding) being that Social Security exists at the whim of Congress. That's a little scary, but that's democracy, man.

(Property, of course, is going to be a social construct anyway you slice it, so it's really the difference between an "entitlement" and something-we-presume-to-be-inviolable, property. Or to put it more simply, varying degrees of seriousness in promise-keeping.)

That said, having some investments in addition to Social Security as it is would be a wonderful thing.

Back to the issue at hand, this is certainly an unfortunate turn of events. Many people were concerned about precisely this when the "outing" brouhaha happened over at Kos (among other blogs);anyway.

Posted by: Jim D at February 14, 2005 11:27 PM

wow. this is amazing. i hope things work out for her. how can a family simply disown a child?

Posted by: Daily Texican at February 14, 2005 11:51 PM

Daily Texican - it happens all the time to glbt kids. Many of us are lucky to have accepting parents, but many glbt kids aren't so lucky.

Posted by: Byron L at February 14, 2005 11:57 PM

This is terrible.

No matter who your children are or what your children do, you should never treat them like this.

I may be a liberal, but come on, Alan Keys, this is your daughter.

If parents of mass murders can still say they love their kids and talk to them, then why can't a conservative ex-presidential, ex-senate candidate?

Can we say small-minded?

Alan Keys needs to get a life. Gay, straight, whatever--she is your daughter and you need to get off your high-horse.

It seems terribly unbiblical to me that someone would disown their children over anything, especially something like this.

Posted by: Vince Leibowitz at February 15, 2005 12:46 AM

"how can a family simply disown a child?"
That's Republican family values. Even peter's off topic, diversionary spamming can't hide the GOP hypocrisy.

As Byron pointed out, this is the tip of the iceberg. Homelessness and suicide rates among GLBT youth are off the scale. Perhaps Maya's situation will draw some badly needed attention to these problems in the mainstream media.

Posted by: Tim Z. at February 15, 2005 04:15 AM

Hey, I had a question, and usually the top post has a better chance at an answer. Keyes isn't the best example here, I sure wouldn't have Keyes as mine. VP Cheney and family is a better one. Her not being that visible in the campaign was more of a personal choice, not exclusionary. Are you going to condem her for her choice?

Posted by: peter at February 15, 2005 06:35 AM

We'd condemn her. The Repubs expressed their 'outrage' over her being mentioned in the debates, yet she was working on the campaign. She was providing guidance on how to handle the glbt issue. That makes her fair game. Notice she wasn't invited on the stage at the GOP convention with her family. It was her choice to be an Uncle Tom. It was her family's choice to throw her under the bus, too.

Posted by: PinkDome at February 15, 2005 10:41 AM

So y'all condem her for making her choice and then you call her an 'Uncle Tom'. Gee that's just swell, not.

Posted by: peter at February 15, 2005 10:53 AM

So y'all condem her for making her choice

You just don't get it, peter. People don't choose their sexual orientations.
Only idiots like Alan Keyes and Fred Phelps believe that.

Posted by: Tim Z. at February 15, 2005 04:52 PM

I can't understand why people, even ultra conservative people, would do this to their kids. It's just not worth it. Thank god for the point foundation, they are awesome.

Posted by: Tek_XX at February 15, 2005 11:47 PM
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