Keyes to join protesters in Boston

By Globe Staff

Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and speakers from the Parents' Rights Coalition plan to speak out next week against the use of state money to promote homosexuality in state public schools, according to coalition organizers.

Keyes, 49, a two-time Republican presidential candidate and former ambassador to the United Nations Social and Economic Council, was invited to speak by the Newton-based coalition.

The coalition is targeting a sexual education seminar called Teach Out 2000 which, according to a coalition press release, ''promotes homosexuality in public schools.''

The program came under fire when the coalition released secretly recorded tapes of a March meeting at Tufts University in which instructors answered graphic questions from high school students about sex, both gay and straight.

A Superior Court judge barred the coalition from distributing the tapes, ruling that they were made in violation of wiretap laws.

In May, the state Department of Education fired one employee who spoke at the conference and canceled the contract of another speaker. The department and Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll then came under fire by gay and lesbian protesters.

Although the state did not sponsor Teach Out 2000, Driscoll terminated the instructor for ''going over the line'' by fielding questions not directly related to disease prevention. He labeled the discussion ''prurient'' and inappropriate.

In a press release announcing Keyes' speech, the coalition said Keyes ''feels the need to respond to the helplessness of parents in the face of a governor and Legislature that refuses to cut one penny of taxpayers' money from gay activist groups and their programs throughout the public schools.''

Keyes will speak at 2:30 p.m. July 25, on the Massachusetts State House's Grand Staircase. The group then plans to deliver a statement to the governor's office.

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