No doubt Keyes has been acting like a loon these days.

But I'd sure like to hear you explain why this makes Keyes a "hypocrite."

Just to make it clear where I'm coming from here.

The word "hypocrisy" has become a horribly overused and, more importantly, misused, cliche' these days on the left. The fact is that those on the left who intend the term to carry such acidity fail to see the logical fallacy in their position.

After all, these are the people who don't seem to believe there is such a thing as "sin", and yet somehow simultaneously beleive that hypocrisy is the biggest sin of them all.

These are the folks who love to quote Jesus when he says, "Judge not lest yet be judged", as if Christians are supposed to be immediately blown back by such a retort---after all, your Savior said it!---and yet if you quoted them some of the other things Jesus had to say, they'd quickly brush it off as the product of 2000 years of mistranslation and misinterpretation.

So excuse me if I object when I see a right-leaning person adopt a tired rhetorical strategy of the left.

If this is true and Mr. Keyes also views his daughter as a "selfish hedonist." then I don't see the hypocrisy. You don't think that a parent can disapprove of what his child is doing?

You'll need more information before you can make the hypocrisy charge stick.

Illinois didn't need the "hypocrisy" to reject Keyes, we could see he was a loon from the get-go.

As far as "selfish hedonism", Keyes has stated publicly that he feels it applies to all non-procreative sex acts.
So either he's a hedonist himself or has been celebate for a long time.

All it takes is a varicose vein in the right place and he won't be fathering any more kids.

First of all, here is the context of Keyes' remark. "The essence of ... family life remains procreation," he explained. "If we embrace homosexuality as a proper basis for marriage, we are saying that it's possible to have a marriage state that in principle excludes procreation and is based simply on the premise of selfish hedonism." It was after he said this that the interviewer asked if that made Mary Cheney a selfish hedonist, to which he responded, "That goes by definition. Of course she is."

Secondly, in a subsequent interview, he said that if his daughter were a lesbian, he would tell her she was committing a sin and should pray about it.

Well, I'd hardly say that Keyes is "a loon."

I don't have a problem with the concepts he's communicating there, within the context of his Christianity. I always find it very amusing how people who aren't Christians love to create "value judgements" about what Christians "should" think and do and reason.

Keyes is speaking in references other than those who do not hold his beliefs don't understand. So, they make his values a social discussion.

No surprise, also, that he isn't doing well, ahem, socially, in Illinois. It's an extremely leftwing area and they do love their social programs. Obama is a "god" within that context, so, of course they're going to ridicule Keyes for being the opposite of Obama on so many levels.

Keyes just isn't a socially adept person. Most of us are not. Obama is. On the other hand, Keyes produces excellent written opinion -- another contradiction that many persons without refined social skills do well by comparison.

Give him a break here, because it has always looked to me that Keyes took a turn at service in this race: accepting the requests to run, knowing fully upfront that he'd be ridiculed through to the expected loss of the race. Someone had to pose the counter to Obama and the DNC in Illinois and Keyes seems to have been big enough to go along with the process.

If Alan Keyes is a loon then he is a loon in very good company: Moses, Saint Paul, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, ...to bring just a few moral men to this new asylum for people with some moral clarity left. Jefferson authorized legislation to penalize sodomy with castration. At the time the Constitution was ratified, the states of New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Connecticut, Virginia, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Jersey implemented the death penalty for those who committed sodomy. The fact that sodomy is not a criminal offense anymore doesn't make it a good behavior either. Keyes is an uncommon politician that stands firm in his beliefs no matter what they say, God bless him for that.

In case you're interested, there is a Libertarian candidate for that seat.

If Mr. Keyes' knew his daughter daughter were lesbian, and If Mr. Keyes' attitude toward her were in any way different than what he's stated about Mr. Cheney's daughter, then he would indeed be a hypocrite. As Ayn Rand would say, "Check your premises." An earlier comment asserts that the premise is not true thus the conclusion does not necessarily follow.

I think that the unstated premise of Mr. Aylward's hypocrisy charge is that bonds of blood are so strong that one must compromise one's beliefs should a close family member violate them. I'd like to challenge that premise. To the contrary, integrity demands that right and wrong do not change regardless of how close the person is to you.

We are long removed from the Greek tragedies where principle demanded that the hero sacrifice his dearest love for his integrity. If Mr. Keyes' daughter were indeed a lesbian and Mr. Keyes (believing it wrong) were to excuse Mr. Cheney's daughter for his own daughter's sake, then he would be the hypocrite.

A hypocrite is someone who assumes a role or pretends an identity that is not his own. When Christ condemned hypocrisy he used the Greek term for "actor." Mr. Keyes is a mighty orator, but he did not come of as an actor when I saw him.