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Maya J. Marcel-Keyes, more commonly known as Maya Keyes (born May 23, 1985), is an American liberal political activist and daughter of former Republican presidential candidate and advisor to Ronald Reagan, United States Ambassador Alan Keyes. While raised in an ultra-conservative family, Marcel-Keyes has been involved with the anarchist movement and as a lesbian, active with the gay rights movement. She is also an adamantly vocal pro-life supporter.

Family

Marcel-Keyes was born in New Jersey and grew up in the Washington, DC suburbs of Maryland by Dr. Keyes and wife Jocelyn Marcel Keyes, formerly of Bombay, India. Marcel-Keyes is the second of three children, raised by the traditional virtues of Roman Catholicism and schooled by members of Opus Dei. A champion of conservative social platforms in the United States through various media and political enterprises, Dr. Keyes' family became a model of the ideal family for millions of devoted American followers. Marcel-Keyes was often seen by such devotees as the ideal daughter.

Influences

Marcel-Keyes often sought escape from the harsh conservatism of her family and befriended more liberal-minded individuals on the streets of Washington, DC. Her friends included drug addicts, homeless gay youth and victims of HIV and AIDS. Through these relationships, Marcel-Keyes developed a deep-seeded compassion for such individuals that led to her activist spirit.

During her time spent with troubled youth, Marcel-Keyes began to develop an awareness of her own sexual identity. She eventually concluded and developed a sense of pride that she was a lesbian.

Politics

Issues

From an early age, Marcel-Keyes involved herself in her father's political work, especially in pro-school choice circles and the pro-life movement. She is a vehement supporter of the pro-life movement and seeks the overturning of the Roe v. Wade ruling. Marcel-Keyes led small groups of gay youth and street kids that joined marches throughout the nation against abortion. It was through the pro-school choice and pro-life issues that Marcel-Keyes was able to convince many liberals to join some of her father's causes, while not entirely endorsing her father's overall platform.

2000 Election

During the 2000 U.S Presidential Election Season, Marcel-Keyes was instrumental in convincing her father, despite objections from Dr. Keyes' U.S. Secret Service detail, to throw himself into a mosh pit organized by Michael Moore while the music of Rage Against the Machine played during an Iowa caucus rally. Fellow candidate Gary Bauer charged that the event was a cheap political stunt. Responding to Bauer, Dr. Keyes said that the mosh pit exeplified "the kind of trust in people that is the heart and soul of the Keyes campaign." He continued, "And when you trust them, they will in fact hold you up, whether it's in terms of giving help to you when you're falling down or caring for their own children."

2004 Election

Marcel-Keyes gained public notoriety after her father was pressured by the Illinois Republican Party to become their new nominee on August 1, 2004 for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald. The previous nominee, businessman and educator Jack Ryan, removed himself from the race after his divorce records were made public. Marcel-Keyes and her father moved to Calumet City and later to Chicago for the race.

It was not yet widely known that Marcel-Keyes was a lesbian at the time. It was unconfirmable. But questions arose when her father answered a reporter's question concerning the homosexuality of Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Dr. Keyes said that homosexuals were guilty of "selfish hedonism," Mary Cheney included.

Blogosphere

Weblogs

The following September, a weblog [1] written by Gerald Farinas, one of Marcel-Keyes's best friends in Chicago and Keyes campaign consultant, was discovered containing a link to what was believed to be, based on clues found on both sites, Marcel-Keyes' online journal [2]. In it, the author described herself as a lesbian. Freelance bloggers concluded it was indeed Marcel-Keyes' site and tried to force her out of the closet. Dragged into the event, bloggers and probing biased news reporters also tried to force Farinas out of the closet as a gay man, with the intent of trying to find ways to destroy Dr. Keyes' campaign and image by painting Dr. Keyes as a hypocrite.

Debate

Mainstream news media outlets like newspapers and television networks did not know how to handle the information discovered by the fast-growing weblog community of freelance reporters. Few moved on the issue and refrained from reporting the events surrounding Marcel-Keyes and Farinas. Both faced a barrage of requests for information from an aggressive media. The Keyes campaign reportedly issued a lockdown of their campaign headquarters and moved Marcel-Keyes and Farinas to separate, undisclosed locations.

Marcel-Keyes and Farinas caused debate within mainstream media outlets as to how they should handle news reports coming from the blogoshpere. Questions remained as to the ethics of using weblogs as news sources. The fear was that weblogs only reported rumors without convincing evidence to support such rumors. There was no definitive evidence that they could find that Marcel-Keyes was a lesbian and Farinas was gay.

Recent events

After the 2004 campaign, Marcel-Keyes joined Farinas as consultants for Dr. Keyes' Illinois office. However, on January 20, 2005, Marcel-Keyes participated in a march opposing the inauguration of President George W. Bush. Disappointed in his daughter's actions, Dr. Keyes relieved his daughter from her duties and requested that she move out of a condominium funded by Dr. Keyes' political organizations in Chicago. Marcel-Keyes wrote in her online journal [3] that she felt as if her parents cast her out of their lives entirely, leaving her unable to pay for rent or tuition.

On Valentine's Day, Marcel-Keyes was invited by gay rights advocacy group Equality Maryland to speak at one of their rallies in support of equal marriage rights [4]. It was at the event that it was discovered that she was forced to leave her Chicago employment and home and her ability to afford her tuition at Brown University was in question. A charity based in San Francisco, California offered tuition assistance.