They Can't Handle the Truth!

Establishment GOPers in Illinois are aghast over Alan Keyes sounding like, I don't know, the Pope?

Illinois Republican Chairman Judy Baar Topinka said Wednesday her party's nominee for U.S. Senate, Alan Keyes, should apologize for his "idiotic" comment vice presidential daughter Mary Cheney and all homosexuals are "selfish hedonists."

But Keyes refused to back down Wednesday, even as Vice President Dick Cheney addressed the Republican National Convention.

"In a homosexual relationship, there is nothing implied except the self-fulfillment, contentment and satisfaction of the parties involved in the relationship," said Keyes, who holds a Ph.D from Harvard University. "That means it is a self-centered, self-fulfilling, selfish relationship that seeks to use the organs intended for procreation for purposes of pleasure. The word pleasure in Greek is hedone and we get the word hedonism from that word."

"You have intervened in order to try to personalize the discussion of an issue that I did not personalize," Keyes told reporters at an Illinois delegation caucus. "The people asking me the question did so and if that's inappropriate, blame the media. Don't blame me."

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Building up to his trademark high-decibel fever pitch, Keyes shouted, "We shall deal with the challenge that is being mounted today to the family structure throughout our country: Gay marriage activists who are demanding that we should take marriage off the foundation of procreation, child rearing, responsibility to the future, that is the true heart of marriage and place it on a basis of selfishness, pleasure-seeking and self-fulfillment."

Some delegates clapped enthusiastically. Other rolled their eyes and clapped silently. Topinka stayed in another room during his speech.

After his eight-minute speech, Keyes was asked if heterosexual couples who don't or can't have children are hedonists.

"The heterosexual relationship is haunted by the possibility of the child, which means you have to commit yourself somewhere to your head to the possibility of a lifelong commitment that involves not only selfish pleasure but sometimes sacrifice."