DEFINING TERMS; KEYES SPEAKS CANDIDLY ABOUT GAYS, ABORTION AND THE CONSERVATIVE AGENDA.

Byline: Scott Holleran

ALAN Keyes doesn't hold back. The 49-year-old Republican presidential hopeful - married, father of three, a devout Roman Catholic, a radio talk show host - captures attention with his charismatic oratory wherever he goes. During an interview in his Anaheim hotel room, the articulate former ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council and the only major black presidential candidate speaks forcefully and, at times, angrily.

Keyes insists on defining terms, makes regular references to God and the Bible, and infuses each statement with the religious fervor of a Baptist minister. The Harvard-educated former diplomat sits comfortably in his chair, often moving to its edge to emphasize his point, and he wears the figure of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross on the outside of his black shirt. It's an appropriate display for the conservative Christian candidate. He's an unabashed man of faith and of God, and he openly intends to leave the mark of both on the American republic.

Q. Do you agree with Republican Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, who seeks to establish a government commission to investigate the deterioration of American culture?

A. I hesitate because, while I have no doubt at all that there has been deterioration of various aspects of American society, I'm not sure that a congressional commission will help us with that.

Q. Do you favor absolute free speech on the Internet, television, radio and movies?

A. No. When you use the word absolute in front of anything in human life, then I'm going to step back. We're not gods. Therefore, there's nothing about human life that's absolute as far as I can tell except the moral principles that don't come from our hand but from the hand of God. We all have to be responsible in our speech. There are certain kinds of speech that are unacceptable. When my wife went to the mall recently, this song started blaring from the mall's speakers with absolutely filthy vulgarity - the F-word, the MF-words - and my wife went and complained about this music, pointing out that there were children in the mall. You don't have music with that kind of filth blaring over the loudspeakers where young kids who are playing in the mall can hear it. There are limits on free speech, and it limits your speech in a public place. You have no right whatsoever to pollute that public environment - any place to which children have unimpeded access. Where children have unimpeded access, we as a society have the right to impose standards of expression in that place. Absolute free speech? No, this isn't something that I would subscribe to.

Q. You're saying that a property owner, because he imposes no restrictions on the admission of children, abdicates his right to absolute free speech on his property?

A. On grounds of public decency.

Q. Is health care a right?

A. No. It can't be. If you force others to take their labor and use it for someone else, on terms decided by you, what do we call that? Slavery. How can I force a doctor to give you health care on terms decided by you or me? That doctor is entitled to give or withhold his labor. We throw the word ``right'' around so carelessly. Every right has the seed of an obligation to respect that right. Those who say we have a right to health care are saying that somebody else has an obligation to give you health care. And that means that others' labor is going to be obliged against their will - without their consent - and that's slavery. Having a goal where everybody has access to health care is different from saying it's a right.

Q. How would you achieve that goal as president?

A. Establish the consumer as the policeman of the relationship between price and value through an expansion of medical savings accounts and the voucherization of government programs so that someone on Medicare or Medicaid is the decision maker. By and large when people go to the doctor they don't know what it costs. If you have consumers who accept the responsibility to get product and service at the lowest price, because it's in their best interest to do so, then you have millions of people policing the relationship between price and value delivered.

Q. Do you believe in the Christian doctrine of forgiveness?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you agree with Republican Rep. Steve Largent, who invited former terrorist and PLO leader Yasser Arafat to a prayer breakfast, that Arafat must be forgiven?

A. Not necessarily. What people tend to forget, for all the talk about unconditional love, is that the doctrine of Christian forgiveness is not unconditional. Christ said, ``If thy brother offend against thee, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.'' I would not have invited Arafat to a prayer breakfast. When Christ tells us to forgive the sinner if he repents, he's requiring us to make a judgment. Judge whether to forgive based on what people actually do.

Q. Do you favor the death penalty?

A. Yes, under certain circumstances.

Q. You define a conservative as one who opposes abortion. But the father of modern conservatism, the late Barry Goldwater, was a staunch proponent of a right to an abortion. Was Goldwater a liberal?

A. He was just wrong. Goldwater embraced a lot of ideas when he was older. There are people who call themselves conservatives today who are conservatives out of calculation or instinct. I am a conservative as a consequence of the basic principles of the American republic. If you are pro-abortion, you are destroying the republic. There are a lot of people who act as if it is possible to be pro-choice and be conservative. If by conservative you mean to conserve our republic, our Constitution, our liberty and our free way of life, it cannot be done if you embrace abortion.

Q. You have written that human beings can't decide who is human and who is not. Are you saying that a scientific explanation of human life's origins is impossible?

A. I'm not necessarily saying that, though I don't know that we've gotten one. I'm not saying it's impossible. I wouldn't want to rule it out. There is a common-sense test that has been applied through the ages as to what constitutes a human being: If your mom is human and your dad is human, then you have established your claim on humanity.

Q. You refer to the fetus as a baby. If life begins at conception, a theological viewpoint you claim is true, is procreation the sole purpose of sex?

A. (Long pause.) Rightly and logically understood, yes.

Q. Therefore, the homosexual is unfit for society?

A. We must accept the notion that if I make a choice, it is not predetermined beyond my control. The argument made on behalf of homosexual rights is (the same argument made about) race. The difference is that sexual activity is placed in the category of human morality.

Q. Are you saying gays are evil?

A. Gays are immoral, but you have to know a good deal more about their circumstances before you can say they're evil. I can tell you that conduct and the persistent engagement in that conduct is immoral. I can only say that gays are evil if they engage in that persistent immoral conduct as a result of a conscious determination against God. You have to take each individual, case by case, always keeping in mind we are not God and therefore will never have full knowledge.

Q. Is man born evil?

A. No. We're born defective. We are born imperfect. We are born with a predisposition that can incline us to do what we ought not to do. We are also born by the grace of God with the option of accepting and receiving God's grace.

Q. Will a Chinese invasion of Taiwan be an act of war?

A. Of course. Yes. The Chinese ought to understand that by engaging in that act they will be confronted with the military force of the United States. That's very important. We're playing with fire if we lead them down a path that lets them think otherwise. If you want to avoid war, make your limits clear. It ought to be crystal clear to the Chinese communists that the use of force will involve them in a confrontation with American military power.

Q. Should the U.S. abandon the one-China policy?

A. Hasn't reality already abandoned it? Over the course of time, both parties have wanted to insist on this one-China myth - the Chinese Communists because they didn't want to give up the claim to Taiwan and the Chinese Nationalists because they didn't want to acknowledge that they were never going to reconquer the mainland. The reality is two separate political entities. It is wrong to maintain business as usual with a communist Chinese dictatorship that systematically disregards and violates human justice. By and large, we don't go out of our way with murderers and scoundrels. That's why I oppose most-favored-nation status (for communist China).

Q. Are you electable and, if so, why have you failed to win an election?

A. By electability, what do you mean?

Q. Winning an election.

A. Well, the word has been bandied about to suggest that I can't win as a black person and America isn't ready for a black president. That's nonsense. We won a straw poll in the heart of the South in Alabama.