In case you haven't been following it, Maya Keyes, daughter of Republican Alan Keyes, who moved to Illinois last year and lost to Barack Obama for the U.S. Senate seat there, bravely came out as a “liberal queer” lesbian last week at a gay rights rally in Maryland. Columnist Dan Savage in the NYT warns of the dangers of schaudenfreude and takes a softer approach toward Alan Keyes and those conservative parents who find they've brought up gay or lesbian offspring:
“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.'”
I have to disagree with Savage on this argument, considering that the gay and lesbian parents that I know from the outset teach their children about choice and diversity whereas I don't imagine that's what happened in the Keyes household. While there's something to be said for individual volition, I think the children of gays and lesbians are far better equipped ideologically to create a more tolerant society.
