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Keyes: Mary Cheney ‘Selfish’

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From a Times Staff Writer

Alan Keyes, the Republican candidate for a vacant U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, said Tuesday that Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Mary was a “selfish hedonist” for being a lesbian.

Keyes, who twice unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in Maryland, is trailing Democratic State Sen. Barack Obama in the Illinois race. His comments came in an interview with OutQ, a satellite radio station for gays and lesbians.

Expressing support for a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would ban same-sex marriage -- an issue that the vice president has said is best left to the states to legislate, Keyes said: “The essence of ... family life remains procreation. 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.”

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Asked whether that meant Mary Cheney was “a selfish hedonist,” Keyes said: “That goes by definition. Of course she is.”

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