Personal Life and Family
Born in a naval hospital on Long Island, New York, Keyes was the fifth child to Allison and Gerthina Keyes, a U.S. Army sergeant and a teacher. Due to his father's tours of duty, the Keyes family traveled frequently. Keyes lived in Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Virginia and overseas in Italy.
After high school, Keyes attended Cornell University, where he was a member of the Cornell University Glee Club and The Hangovers. He studied political philosophy with American philosopher and essayist Allan Bloom and has said that Bloom was the professor who influenced him most in his undergraduate studies. Keyes has stated that he received death threats for opposing Vietnam war protesters who seized a campus building. Keyes has stated that a passage of Bloom's book, The Closing of the American Mind, refers to this incident, speaking of an African-American student "whose life had been threatened by a black faculty member when the student refused to participate in a demonstration" at Cornell. Shortly thereafter, he left the school and spent a year in Paris under a Cornell study abroad program connected with Bloom.
Keyes continued his studies at Harvard University, where he resided in Winthrop House, and completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in government affairs in 1972. During his first year of graduate school, Keyes's roommate was William Kristol. In 1988, Kristol ran Keyes's unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign in Maryland.
Keyes earned his PhD in government affairs from Harvard University in 1979, having written a dissertation on Alexander Hamilton and constitutional theory, under Harvey C. Mansfield. Due to student deferments and a high draft number, Keyes was not drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. Keyes and his family were staunch supporters of the war, in which his father served two tours of duty. Keyes was criticized by opponents of the war in Vietnam, but he says he was supporting his father and his brothers, who were also fighting in the war.
Keyes is married to Jocelyn Marcel Keyes, of Indian descent, from Calcutta. The couple has three children, Francis, Maya, and Andrew. Keyes is a traditional Catholic and a third-degree Knight of Columbus. He's also a close friend of Brazilian conservative philosopher Olavo de Carvalho.
In 2005, when Maya Keyes was 20 years old, she came out as a lesbian. There were reports her family threw her out of the house and stopped talking to her. In an interview with Metro Weekly, a Washington, D.C., LGBT newspaper, Maya confirmed that her father "cut off all financial support." In the same report Maya said, "It doesn't make much sense for him to be supporting someone who is working against what he believes in." Alan Keyes contradicted reports about his having disowned his daughter in October 2007. Keyes said that he loves his daughter and that she knows she has a home with him. He asserted that he never cut her off and never would, because it would be "wrong in the eyes of God." He also said he would not be coerced into "approving of that which destroys the soul" of his daughter. He contended that he must "stand for the truth represents" even if it breaks his heart.
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