The Biggest Threat to Our Nation
March 12, 2008 9:17 PM   Subscribe

An anti-gay rant for the ages. By an American state rep. In 2008. Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern told fellow republicans at a private audience that the homosexual agenda is destroying the nation and that gay people are a bigger threat to our national than terrorism. And that no society that has embraced gay culture has survived. And much more. Well, doggone if these things don't get leaked and find themselves online. Have a few links to the videos and coverage. There are some rumors that Kern has a gay son, but who knows? For her part, Kern says that her remarks were misconstrued and that she is "not going to apologize for standing up for God's word."
posted by sneakin (209 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
I don't think misconstrued means what she thinks it means, cause it sounded like ten minutes of unedited, unabashed gay-hating.

Interestingly, the youtube video's been yanked for TOS violations.
posted by boo_radley at 9:23 PM on March 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Why do these morons think their god needs somebody to stand up for him? If you believe the man's brochure he built the planet and then sometime later up and flooded the planet and then just for kicks blew up a couple of cities.

So if a god like that wants something done looks like he does it his own self.
posted by tkchrist at 9:28 PM on March 12, 2008 [48 favorites]


Vile words. The video is here.
posted by merocet at 9:29 PM on March 12, 2008


Cute. Really cute.

...

Seriously, why? I'm literally unable to comprehend that kind of hatred.
posted by Caduceus at 9:33 PM on March 12, 2008


Ah, but how does it read if you replace every reference to homosexuality with a reference to Baptists?
posted by davejay at 9:34 PM on March 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


Sally Kern is absolutely right, homosexuality is a huge threat to this country. Do you have any idea how much productivity has been lost to lesbians on the internet?
posted by Pastabagel at 9:34 PM on March 12, 2008 [22 favorites]


Homosexual agenda?

I kid, I kid. All orientations can love garish stationary with equal shame.
posted by cowbellemoo at 9:35 PM on March 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


If recent history is any indicator, this is evidence that Sally Kern is actually a gay man.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:35 PM on March 12, 2008 [47 favorites]


Of course, I also don't advocate blowing up people's heads for saying mean things, so maybe I'm just emotionally stunted?
posted by Caduceus at 9:35 PM on March 12, 2008


The head-blowing agenda will destroy this country!
posted by davejay at 9:38 PM on March 12, 2008


like seeds rattling in a dried gourd.
posted by trondant at 9:39 PM on March 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


I am so fucking sick of these shitkicking hillbillies and their idiot bigoted manchild killer God I could scream. Could someone please start putting head-asploding blipverts in pop-country records and talk radio programs already so gay people can be safe from their poisonous, virulent hate?

The heartfelt appeal of a true victim.
posted by Krrrlson at 9:40 PM on March 12, 2008 [5 favorites]


Is there, like, a Guiness World Record stupidity contest going on that I haven't heard of, or do American pols always get this morally retarded every time big elections are around the corner?
posted by Iosephus at 9:41 PM on March 12, 2008


I am so fucking sick of these shitkicking hillbillies and their idiot bigoted manchild killer God I could scream. Could someone please start putting head-asploding blipverts in pop-country records and talk radio programs....

I'm no expert, but this may not be the best way to fight intolerant, hateful, bigoted, stereotyping, inflammatory statements.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:41 PM on March 12, 2008 [22 favorites]


And that no society that has embraced gay culture has survived.

Whoa there. Inasmuch as any cultures can be called immortal, persistent in their ideas and influences, can't ancient Greece and Rome?
posted by kid ichorous at 9:42 PM on March 12, 2008 [5 favorites]


I'm going to listen to this while I download 3 torrents of gay porn.
posted by desjardins at 9:43 PM on March 12, 2008 [7 favorites]


If recent history is any indicator, this is evidence that Sally Kern is actually a gay man.

Cool. I'm breaking out my "Sally Kern is a homo" t-shirt at her next election rally.
posted by Bixby23 at 9:45 PM on March 12, 2008


I'm going to listen to this while I download 3 torrents of gay porn.

You see? Network neutrality is turning your children gay.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:52 PM on March 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


It doesn't excuse her behavior, but the talk in the community here is that Kern has a gay son, and she has had a long-term problem with dealing with her son's homosexuality. As we can see, she and people who agree with her have a long ways to go with their "coping skills".

Patience and vigilance for gay bashers are the key lessons, each time this happens. We can also be thankful that every time that gay bashers like her (and her sick-headed apologist in this thread) mouth off about how gays are worse than terrorists/unspoken Muslims, putting a spotlight on that kind of ridiculous, hateful behavior is really win-win for gay and Muslim Americans, and really for all American citizens.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:53 PM on March 12, 2008 [6 favorites]


Could someone please start putting head-asploding blipverts in pop-country records and talk radio programs already so gay people can be safe from their poisonous, virulent hate?

Oh, is that like on the new Bright Eyes record when he hits that fey 5 Hz warble and the guy from Scanners comes out of my radio and OH GOD IT'S HAPPENING NOW
posted by kid ichorous at 9:56 PM on March 12, 2008 [4 favorites]


I'm no expert, but this may not be the best way to fight intolerant, hateful, bigoted, stereotyping, inflammatory statements.

Okay, I'm bigoted against God Hates Fags types and their perverted religion. I am also bigoted against Nazis, Klan members, and garden-variety racists/bigots , and Puerto Ricans. Sorry, I'm not Jesus. I don't love everyone no matter how horrible they are and how much they want my friends to die and burn in hell. The idea of being tolerant of all points of view no matter how horrible and hurtful they are is what allowed these corn-shucking Nazi fucks to gain so much power in the first place. It's time we fought back.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:57 PM on March 12, 2008 [16 favorites]


Don't take the gay agenda lightly - the gay agenda could lead to gay electronic organisers and ultimately the gay PDA.
posted by jb at 9:58 PM on March 12, 2008 [9 favorites]


(I would have said the pink PDA, but hey, lesbians, bis, and transexuals want to be organised too.)
posted by jb at 9:59 PM on March 12, 2008 [3 favorites]


Top 9 societies that have embraced gay culture and consequently been destroyed:
  1. Spartans
  2. Romans
  3. Nazis
  4. Dinosaurs
  5. Atlanteans
  6. Disco
  7. Those guys at Abu Ghraib
  8. Beat generation
  9. Larry Craig
Do you want American to #10?
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 9:59 PM on March 12, 2008 [15 favorites]


Those guys at Abu Ghraib

Yeah, make that two apologists.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:01 PM on March 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Well to be fair terrorism isn't actually a big threat to this country.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:04 PM on March 12, 2008 [15 favorites]


This is surprising? She's a nobody state rep from Oklahoma. If we're going to get freaked about this, try looking at the dominionists, who have the same beliefs. The difference is that she's nobody, and they have influence over the highest levels of the republican party. John McCain was sucking up to a bunch of them, the Traditional Values Coalition (listed by the Southern Poverty Center as a hate group), only a couple weeks ago. Think about that.
posted by mullingitover at 10:04 PM on March 12, 2008 [6 favorites]


Top 9 societies blah blah... flagged as noise. Why is this guy allowed to run around? He's clearly a yahoo that paid $5 to troll a web forum. He has nothing to contribute besides hit-and-run trolling.
posted by DecemberBoy at 10:06 PM on March 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


100% Guaranteed cure
posted by Artw at 10:07 PM on March 12, 2008


This is why don't live there anymore. Now I feel a lot less guilty about never wanting to go back.

Sigh. I've never encountered such a profound contradiction between hatefulness and genuine nice-ness as I have in OK.

It's hard to explain, and I'm not sure I'll get anywhere trying . . . but I guess I've spent enough time in Oklahoma to see such vileness as symptomatic (at least in part) of isolation and ignorance. Unless you've lived there, it's hard to imagine how culturally isolated places like Oklahoma can become from the rest of the world, and how much that isolation provides fertile ground for ignorance to blossom into hatred.
posted by treepour at 10:07 PM on March 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


The theory is that Huckabee stayed in the race as long as he did, to make it clear to the relatively agnostic McCain that, at its core, the Republican Party is the party of Christian dominionists/fundamentalists.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:08 PM on March 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


do American pols always get this morally retarded every time big elections are around the corner?
Some of our pols are always this retarded. It's just that we ignore our lawmakers except during Presidential election years.
posted by hattifattener at 10:10 PM on March 12, 2008


That's true. It was in Oklahoma that I first saw one of those novelty $3 bills with Bill Clinton on it.

What a bunch of isolated ignoramuses. $3 bills aren't real!
posted by shakespeherian at 10:10 PM on March 12, 2008


On April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City a terrorist detonated a bomb that killed my mother and 167 others. 19 children died that day. Had I not had the chicken pox that day, the body count would've likely have included one more. Over 800 other Oklahomans were injured that day and many of those still suffer through their permanent wounds.

That terrorist was neither a homosexual or was he involved in Islam. He was an extremist Christian forcing his views through a body count. He held his beliefs and made those who didn't live up to them pay with their lives.

As you were not a resident of Oklahoma on that day, it could be explained why you so carelessly chose words saying that the homosexual agenda is worst than terrorism. I can most certainly tell you through my own experience that is not true. I am sure there are many people in your voting district that laid a loved one to death after the terrorist attack on Oklahoma City. I kind of doubt you'll find one of them that will agree with you.
Read the entire letter to Sally Kern from an Oklahoma high school senior.
posted by bradlands at 10:13 PM on March 12, 2008 [108 favorites]


More seriously, my husband has been pointing out that late in the clip she compares homosexuality to an infestation of insects - and (with the requisite nod to Godwin) that is the exact rhetoric that was on the radio in Ruanda right before the massacre (as well as on German radio in the 1930s). I first found it somewhat funny in its over the top paranoia, but when he told me this, I just find it chilling.
posted by jb at 10:13 PM on March 12, 2008 [5 favorites]


mullingitover writes "John McCain was sucking up to a bunch of them, the Traditional Values Coalition (listed by the Southern Poverty Center as a hate group), only a couple weeks ago."

Ack, mea culpa. I had the wrong dominionist group. It's the Council for National Policy.
posted by mullingitover at 10:14 PM on March 12, 2008


Now I feel a lot less guilty about never wanting to go back.

Well, I can understand hometown pride and suchlike, but OK is the state so shitty we were willing (in principle) to force the entire Native American population there and not feel like we lost much. It's always been the state we never really wanted or needed.
posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice at 10:19 PM on March 12, 2008


You may just see me as a kid, but let me try to teach you something. The old saying is sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you. Well, your words hurt me. Your words disrespected the memory of my mom. Your words can cause others to pick up sticks and stones and hurt others.

Like Germany's Edelweiss Pirates, kids like Tucker will save the USA from fascists like Kern, not by changing the minds of her and her fascist apologists, but by lifting the spirits of everyone else who has to live with the consequences of her actions as a lawmaker and public representative.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:24 PM on March 12, 2008 [3 favorites]


It won't be long before Sally Kern is caught scissoring a short-haired chick in fatigues.
posted by brain_drain at 10:25 PM on March 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


It won't be long before Sally Kern is caught scissoring a short-haired chick in fatigues.

Then she'll go to camp for three days and be cured. Hurrah!
posted by shakespeherian at 10:27 PM on March 12, 2008


Why is this guy allowed to run around? He's clearly a yahoo that paid $5 to troll a web forum. He has nothing to contribute besides hit-and-run trolling.

Your contribution, by contrast, has been stellar.
posted by Krrrlson at 10:42 PM on March 12, 2008 [7 favorites]


Like Germany's Edelweiss Pirates, kids like Tucker will save the USA from fascists like Kern, not by changing the minds of her and her fascist apologists, but by lifting the spirits of everyone else who has to live with the consequences of her actions as a lawmaker and public representative.

Well, that and being younger than her so that they will be able to teach future generations some sense long after she's dead and not missed.
posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice at 11:20 PM on March 12, 2008


What puzzles me most is she has a BA in Sociology. Did she sleep through the whole part about deviance?
posted by parhamr at 11:33 PM on March 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Okay, I'm bigoted against God Hates Fags types and their perverted religion. I am also bigoted against Nazis, Klan members, and garden-variety racists/bigots [...] Sorry, I'm not Jesus. I don't love everyone no matter how horrible they are and how much they want my friends to die and burn in hell.

You missed lepers and witches.

In defense of what Pater Aletheias wrote, your original statement really could be read as disparaging to lower-class midwesterners, as if Homophobia were some dirt-road demense tucked down in Tornado Alley:

I am so fucking sick of these shitkicking hillbillies and their idiot bigoted manchild killer God I could scream. Could someone please start putting head-asploding blipverts in pop-country records

See, it's no great secret that homophobia also has a hand in, say, Islamic culture, or in hyper-masculine rap culture, or in Dominican culture, and so on. Now, granted, these faces of bigotry aren't front-and-center in this thread. Some of them we aren't even comfortable talking about. But imagine if this showed up in another thread:

I am so fucking sick of these shitkicking hillbillies camel-jockeys and their idiot bigoted manchild killer God I could scream. Could someone please start putting head-asploding blipverts on pop-country records al-Jazeira

I am so fucking sick of these shitkicking hillbillies jivetalking homeboys and their idiot bigoted manchild killer God misogynist, homophobe noise I could scream. Could someone please start putting head-asploding blipverts on pop-country BET


Would you think that was okay?
posted by kid ichorous at 11:41 PM on March 12, 2008 [7 favorites]


It's time we fought back.

Agreed! I'll try and hold down the fort here on the Blue! Now go, Belated Outrage Lad With An Apparently Shaky Sense of History! Go!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:58 PM on March 12, 2008 [12 favorites]


Thank god for Sally Kern. Someone had to take down Larry Craig before he converted all of us manly men with his mesmerizing foot-tapping!
posted by orthogonality at 12:08 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


This is why don't live there anymore.

Really? I'm from there too. Which part?

Sigh. I've never encountered such a profound contradiction between hatefulness and genuine nice-ness as I have in OK.

Come live in Seattle for a few years. At least Okies are honest about their bigotries.

It's hard to explain, and I'm not sure I'll get anywhere trying . . . but I guess I've spent enough time in Oklahoma to see such vileness as symptomatic (at least in part) of isolation and ignorance. Unless you've lived there, it's hard to imagine how culturally isolated places like Oklahoma can become from the rest of the world, and how much that isolation provides fertile ground for ignorance to blossom into hatred.

Yeah, well, I've lived there, I grew up there, and I'm not sure what the hell you're talking about.

In terms of isolation, it has nothing on Arkansas or Kansas. They're not as crazy as Texans, not as staid as Missourians. I think there's a lot of inherent xenophobia there -- there's just not a lot of trust of outsiders -- and I think it comes from a natural conservatism down there.

But honestly, most Okies I know -- my family, friends I grew up with -- aren't in the least bigoted and horribly misinformed as this poor woman. Is there homophobia down there? Oh God, yes. But they're not all like that. And these sorts of suggestions that this women is trying to have her Nuremberg Speech completely misses the reality of things down there.

Not that I'd move back. Tulsa is not my town anymore. It's changed a lot in the nearly two decades since I graduated from high school.
posted by dw at 12:22 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


DecemberBoy: Top 9 societies blah blah... flagged as noise.

Oh, c'mon. Dinosaurs? Do you need an <absurdist> tag?

Odd that you've managed to post over 200 comments and rack up 250 favorites in just a month.... Odd
posted by oncogenesis at 12:23 AM on March 13, 2008


And that no society that has embraced gay culture has survived.

This is an interesting comment, but not just for the lack of historical perspective.

I find the underlying subtext of this argument to be surreal: that American civilization, barring Muslim or homosexual takeover, will last forever. Can any civilization truly "survive" (until when?)? Is that even possible? Could we imagine a future, millions of years from now, where brave Christian astronauts plant American flags across the Virgo Supercluster, reporting back to mission control in unmolested English? Is that even feasible?

I get the same feeling when I hear the illegal-immigrant debate. "If we don't kick 'em out, our grandkids will be speakin' Spanish!!!!" Yeah, so what? I love English as much as the next anglo, but I can almost guarantee that nobody but historians will be speaking it in a thousand years or so. Maybe sooner. Would that be a tragedy? A little bittersweet, perhaps, but in the big scheme of things it wouldn't even matter.

Its a scary person who believes that their particular race or nation is destined for immortality if only "Enemy group X" can be safely annihilated. Maybe its time that all the nations of the world realize that we each have an expiration date, and that's OK.
posted by Avenger at 12:24 AM on March 13, 2008 [38 favorites]


Would you think that was okay?

When Islamic fundamentalists and hyper-masculine rappers become elected lawmakers and try to legislate Queer-Kickin' Jesus down everyone's throat and deface state constitutions with homophobic vandalism, I'll come up with epithets for them too. For now, however, that behavior is limited to shitkicking hillbillies.

Your contribution, by contrast, has been stellar.

This is a subject that enrages me to ineloquence. Maybe I should have restrained myself.

Odd that you've managed to post over 200 comments and rack up 250 favorites in just a month.... Odd

What're you gettin' at, flapjack?
posted by DecemberBoy at 12:42 AM on March 13, 2008 [5 favorites]


I don't think flapjack be gettin' at anything. He bain't even in this thread.
posted by Wolof at 1:03 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Okies are just OK by me... Okies are just OK. I don't care what people say, Okies are just OK.

Sorry, I got that damned song in my head now.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:28 AM on March 13, 2008


What're you gettin' at, flapjack?

Lurk moar.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:37 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


Wuh, wuh, wait a minute. Did she really just compare homosexuality to cancer? I admit I kind of tuned out a bit, and was reading the text on the screen, but I could have sworn she compared homosexuality to cancer. And that's not hate speech?
posted by MrMustard at 2:29 AM on March 13, 2008


$3 bills aren't real

That's because they are coins!
posted by DreamerFi at 4:09 AM on March 13, 2008


It's really disturbing that someone in a position of political responsibility and visibility feels empowered to display this kind of hatred so openly. Where she comes form, what her religious beliefs are, have little to do with it - this sort of virulent homophobia is well represented everywhere. The fact that it influences and shapes public policy is a shame and a disgrace. It's couched in terms of "faith" and "morality," but those are a feeble cover for something that is far, far away from either of those things. I have seen what homophobia does to people, seen the actions it supposedly justifies, and there is nothing moral or Godly about it. She flat out doesn't think that homosexuals are human beings, doesn't believe they should be treated like human beings, doesn't believe that the should be extended the basic rights that others have. She's far from alone - a lot of our lawmakers believe and explicitly state similar sentiments, and vote and legislate accordingly.

She says it's dangerous for her to say what she's saying. Probably feels like she's being persecuted for her "belief." Sally, your belief may earn you censure and a shaming, but it's not going to result in you losing your job, losing your children, being denied medical care, being arrested, or being beaten to death.
posted by louche mustachio at 4:39 AM on March 13, 2008 [5 favorites]


"As a Christian I love homosexuals," says Rep. Kern. "I love everybody. God loves everybody."

Rep. Kern says it's not hate speech, just her right to speak.

"I do think it's a huge threat to the very fiber of our nation," says Rep. Kern.



The contradictions inherent in this sequence of statements are astounding.
posted by bassjump at 4:46 AM on March 13, 2008


Actually, she's right, in her own way. One of the first steps fascists take is to try to strengthen "the family" and then cast themselves as the uber-father. To the extent that homosexuality throws a monkeywrench into the All-American Family Ideal, it subverts this program.

So to a Republican, homosexuality probably really is the biggest threat out there. It's just that, once again, they misperceive a threat to themselves as harm to the rest of the country.
posted by DU at 4:55 AM on March 13, 2008 [7 favorites]


My heart breaks for her son.
posted by orange swan at 4:57 AM on March 13, 2008


Parent's were raised in OKC, one brother still lives there. It was home for my Grandparents, on both sides. I lived, went to university and started my professional career there in the early '80's.

Let's call it's influence or affect on my life as something over 4 decades, more for my brothers and parents. Rep Kern's attitude is regrettably standard fair for OK and, in my view for most of the midwest.

There simply isn't room for visible, progressive thought in that state without becoming ostracised from almost every aspect of community or political leadership.
posted by michswiss at 5:01 AM on March 13, 2008


Thank you for calling our attention to that, bradlands. Tucker is awesome.

I also like what the Victory Fund has posted in response. Kind of an invitation to bear witness.
posted by sneakin at 5:03 AM on March 13, 2008


Ted Haggard is one the of the vilest of them all. First gay bashing then getting outed as gay AND meth abuser. Sounds like Limbaugh, first throw drug abusers in the river, then abuse oxycotin. They just can't help bashing and shaming others into doing something, inciting hatred toward them and then do the exact opposite.

Never an hint of compassion, never an attempt to understand , just prescriptive words of a vengeful, hateful metaphisycal entity...which is convenient, so they are not blamed as attackers, but as mere enforcerers of the word of god.

In a parallel without metaphysics, let's look at N.Y. ex governet Spitzer. It seems he indeed did good by attacking powerful financial tycoons, he attacked prostitution rings and I have little doubt he made a number of financially motivated enemies in doing so, yet exactly as Haggard he at some point tought he was above the law.

DU writes "So to a Republican, homosexuality probably really is the biggest threat out there."

Possibly, but I guess it's a suggested distraction. If one focuses too much on homos as if they were as impending a danger as Hurricane Katrina, you may miss the real Katrina.
posted by elpapacito at 5:04 AM on March 13, 2008


I'm going to back DecemberBoy here, at least to an extent. In the USA, right now, the biggest collection of insane hatred towards homosexuals comes from shitkicking hillbillies. If you are a shitkicking hillbilly and not filled with insane hatred towards homosexuals, great, but you're in the extreme minority. If you're offended by the fact that others are correctly and objectively identifying shitkicking hillbillies as the prime source of insane hatred against homosexuals you have two choices: (1) Stop being a shitkicking hillbilly, or (2) speak up and tell your fellow shitkicking hillbillies that insane hatred against homosexuals isn't right.

Yes, in other parts of the world other groups are the main insane hatred groups. This isn't about them. Its about a shitkicking hillbilly who gave a spittle filled speech embracing her insane hatred; an elected, powerful, shitkicking hillbilly I might add.

That said, its also true that using language like "shitkicking hillbillies" is pretty much guaranteed to piss off anyone who might be considered a member of that group, and thus turn them against the cause of not being filled with insane hatred.

OTOH, does anyone really think that using nicer language is really going to change any minds here?
posted by sotonohito at 5:12 AM on March 13, 2008 [7 favorites]


I am so fucking sick of these shitkicking hillbillies and their idiot bigoted manchild killer God.

Hate versus Hate = Win!
posted by Atreides at 5:15 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Yeah, watch out Oklahoma, you've got guns and heavy machinery but we've got internet sarcasm.

HERE'S COMES THE FILTER.
posted by The Straightener at 5:22 AM on March 13, 2008 [3 favorites]


If one focuses too much on homos as if they were as impending a danger as Hurricane Katrina, you may miss the real Katrina.

True, but so what? The real Katrina only kills poor and/or black people.
posted by DU at 5:28 AM on March 13, 2008


Please folks, meeting hate with more hate is not the answer. Alot of the homophobic attitudes of the south come from fear of the unknown and just people having a hard time changing. Growing up in the 80's, aside from the guy on Soap, (that we weren't allowed to watch) no one knew anyone who admitted to being gay. IT just wasn't talked about and that has led to change taking a long time to come around. Even in Atlanta, there are still very strong homophobic feelings that unfortunately probably won't die out until the older generation does. That doesn't make it right, but neither does lobbing the hate back over the fence with a killer topspin. All Christians don't feel this way. I don't. All republicans don't feel this way. I don't. I do feel that idiots like this woman make my place as a conservative christian a scary one sometimes. I have to work much harder to make people see that we aren't all vile shit-spewing idiots. We aren't all that way, I promise! And we hate it when the crazies among us run amock!

on preview, what Atreides so concisely said!
posted by pearlybob at 5:31 AM on March 13, 2008 [3 favorites]


A conservative christian Republican...who doesn't hate gays? Not to turn this thread into All About Pearlybob, but what exactly is left in your platform? Just domination of women and theocracy in schools?
posted by DU at 5:34 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


I'm curious as to the ethics of investigating her son's possible gayness. Presumably, if it's true that she'd disowned him, then he has his own life now and her homophobia is none of his business, just as his homosexuality is none of hers.
posted by creasy boy at 5:34 AM on March 13, 2008


See, there are those of us out there. Trying to be heard among the "you've been heal-ed" din of our 'breatheren'.
posted by pearlybob at 5:38 AM on March 13, 2008


Okay, let's see, the ancient Greeks embraced homosexuality and are now gone. Exactly what was the rah-rah I'm-a-lumberjack-and-that's-okay heterosexual concurrent culture from that time that is still around? The Cthulu? Because I've heard rumors about them.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:40 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


Vikings. (That's where I'm hetero.)
posted by DU at 5:43 AM on March 13, 2008


In all honesty, I'm probably more of a liberal on the social aspect of it but very fiscally conservative and just seem to identify with the right more. We don't all think being gay is wrong, that is just the story that makes the press sometimes. Jesus said nothing about homosexuality in his teachings. Only that we should love our neighbor as ourself. Since I claim to be a Christian and not a Levitican (where the gay condeming stuff is found) then I will do just that. My best to love everyone.
posted by pearlybob at 5:47 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


And that no society that has embraced gay culture has survived...which segues immediately into this.
posted by gimonca at 5:53 AM on March 13, 2008


OIC, a christian and a conservative, but not a christian-conservative.
posted by DU at 5:54 AM on March 13, 2008


I guess. I've never really thought about it that way but seems right. Have to ponder that one a bit.
posted by pearlybob at 5:56 AM on March 13, 2008


OK is the state so shitty we were willing (in principle) to force the entire Native American population there and not feel like we lost much. It's always been the state we never really wanted or needed.

Screw you, pal. Oklahoma has enough shit to put up with without you adding your pathetic cartload. If you think it, or any part of the country, has a monopoly on homophobia, you need to open your eyes. And you "shitkicking hillbillies" dumbasses: you're no better than the people you're spewing hate against.
posted by languagehat at 6:12 AM on March 13, 2008 [8 favorites]


I live in Northern California about 80 miles east of San Fran and on the first day of 8th grade at the new private christian school I started attending one of my clearest memories is this:

The guy sitting behind me was looking through a gun magazine, flipping the pages and pointing out ones he thought are cool.

"Damn, I'd like to get a couple of these and go to San Fran and shoot some fags."

Our teach was about four-feet-away and he looked up from his desk when he heard the kid say that and then looked back down at that papers he was grading.

Tolerance. We teach tolerance of all things do we not? So it is completely acceptable for this teacher to allow this child to say something like that and not do anything because the teacher must be tolerant? God forbid we raise our temper about anything.

Preach all you want about the evils of fighting hate with hate but let's face it, Jesus taught us to turn the other cheek, this is okay to do as a christian because, well, if the person hurting you kills you, you get to go to heaven and live happily ever after. Jesus did turn the other cheek, the haters killed him, but that's cool because he came back to life. We don't afford this luxury.

This is the real world. There is no god or afterlife or just reward. This is life fighting life and it's survival of the fittest. These hateful people would love to roll over you and control your life, the way you raise your children, the things you watch, the books you read, the ideas you have. If we just sit back and throw up our hands and say "hate is bad" then we lose. It's okay to hate them back. Their ideas HURT people. In fact, that's pretty much the only reason to hate anything, it hurts others.
posted by M Edward at 6:14 AM on March 13, 2008 [7 favorites]


Damn, I knew it. After 13 years together and five years of marriage, my husband and I have lost our civilization-destroying powers. All we do is work and sit around saying stuff like,

"What do you want to have for dinner?"

"Pasta?"

"I had pasta for lunch."

and

"You wanna watch something tonight?"

"Is that Coen brothers thing out on DVD yet?"

Where's our God-defying mojo, our flagrant disregard, our joie de guerre? It's pathetic. We'll have to go back to Gay U. where you learn stuff like undermining, conversion of youth, dressing like a real priest, and activist judging.
posted by digaman at 6:14 AM on March 13, 2008 [38 favorites]


This is the real world. There is no god or afterlife or just reward. This is life fighting life and it's survival of the fittest. These hateful people would love to roll over you and control your life, the way you raise your children, the things you watch, the books you read, the ideas you have. If we just sit back and throw up our hands and say "hate is bad" then we lose. It's okay to hate them back. Their ideas HURT people. In fact, that's pretty much the only reason to hate anything, it hurts others.

That's just what Ghandi said!
posted by shakespeherian at 6:16 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


I agree that conservative and evangelical Christians and people from rural and midwestern parts of our country contribute more than their fair share of bigotry. But I think it sort of does an injustice to how widespread oppression based on homophobia is to dismiss it more generally as a phenomenon of shitkicking hillbillies or even wacky religified people. Thinking about current events, Lawrence King was from Oxnard, CA. Not NYC, sure, but definitely not Dog Patch. Simmie Williams, also recently murdered, was from Fort Lauderdale for chrissakes. Just saying.
posted by sneakin at 6:18 AM on March 13, 2008


Oklahomophobia.
posted by breezeway at 6:24 AM on March 13, 2008 [20 favorites]


Where's our God-defying mojo, our flagrant disregard, our joie de guerre? It's pathetic. We'll have to go back to Gay U. where you learn stuff like undermining, conversion of youth, dressing like a real priest, and activist judging.

No, you've fallen into the trap the radical heterosexual agenda has been laying for you gays all these years -- make you demand marriage, only to discover how mundane and boring it is! And soon you'll be buying his and his Buicks!
posted by dw at 6:25 AM on March 13, 2008 [5 favorites]


This week's Savage Love is very relevant and moving. Made me cry.
posted by waraw at 6:26 AM on March 13, 2008 [12 favorites]


If one focuses too much on homos as if they were as impending a danger as Hurricane Katrina, you may miss the real Katrina.

Gay people didn't blow down my mother-in-law's house. But it would kind of be awesome if they did.
posted by ColdChef at 6:34 AM on March 13, 2008 [9 favorites]


Oklahomophobia.

Bravo, sir. Bravo.
posted by ColdChef at 6:38 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


The theory is that Huckabee stayed in the race as long as he did, to make it clear to the relatively agnostic McCain that, at its core, the Republican Party is the party of Christian dominionists/fundamentalists.

That's not the theory back here in Arkansas. The people who actually know him suspect that he kept in it because he could continue to pay himself and his family and friends salaries, fly around the country in a big shiny jet, get to be on TV and radio, shake hands with famous people, and hang out with Chuck Norris. All on the campaign contributors' dime, and all without having to do anything resembling actual, identifiable work. It's sort of how he ran the governor's office down here.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:43 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


My personal definition of 'shitkicking hillbillies' isn't geography or religion dependent. Radical islamic terrorists are the shitkicking hillbillies of the middle east.

Perhaps "intentionally ignorant and intolerant persons" is more apt but it doesn't really have the heft of 'shitkicking hillbillies.'
posted by Skorgu at 6:47 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


If your definition of "hillbillies" is "intentionally ignorant and intolerant persons," then I have a whole lot of friends (not to mention my wife's entire family) who would like to make your acquaintance.

I don't say that as a drive-by snark. Every time I hear someone use the words "hicks" or "hillbillies" unironically, I think of that episode of the Simpsons when Krusty hires Cletus's kids to be part of a musical comedy act. On their big debut performance, they sing a medley of showtunes reworked for LOLHIX laffs, and just in case you were too dense to get the not-at-all-subtle subtext, at the end of the song, one of the kids spreads a big, toothless grin at the audience and declares, "Yer better'n us!" At which point the audience erupts into wild applause. When you say "shitkicking hillbillies," I see you sitting in that audience.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:00 AM on March 13, 2008 [6 favorites]


And you "shitkicking hillbillies" dumbasses: you're no better than the people you're spewing hate against.

So you're saying that DecemberBoy and his compatriots successfully got states to pass laws forbidding shitkicking hillbillies from adopting children?

And making sure that when shitkicking hillbillies are incapacitated, their families who disapprove of their shitkicking lifestyle make medical decisions, and that their shitkicking hillbilly partners have no say in the matter and might not even be able to visit?

And they amended the constitutions of a bunch of states to make sure that shitkicking hillbillies could never marry other shitkicking hillbillies, and that they couldn't even enter into perfectly normal civil contracts that were too close to honest non-shitkicking marriage?

And that shitkicking hillbillies have to hide their shitkicking habits in order to serve in the military?

Because unless these things are true, it seems to me that DecemberBoy and his compatriots are better than the people they're railing against. In the same sense that food poisoning is better than ebola.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:06 AM on March 13, 2008 [13 favorites]


My personal definition of 'shitkicking hillbillies' isn't geography or religion dependent. Radical islamic terrorists are the shitkicking hillbillies of the middle east.

Ok, so you're like the white person who says, "When I use the word 'nigger,' I just mean 'ignorant person.' Whites can be niggers too!"
posted by Snyder at 7:14 AM on March 13, 2008 [7 favorites]


GOD HATES SALLY KERN
posted by TechnoLustLuddite at 7:14 AM on March 13, 2008


Because unless these things are true, it seems to me that DecemberBoy and his compatriots are better than the people they're railing against. In the same sense that food poisoning is better than ebola.

I take your point, of course, but I didn't say they'd done things as bad, I said they were not better people. I have no way of knowing that, if they had a bunch of "hillbillies" in their power, they wouldn't use them as a target for their vengeful fantasies in exactly the same way homophobes take out their fantasies on gays.

And I came here to say exactly what Snyder said, only he beat me to it. If you don't want to make your insults geography-dependent, don't use a geography-dependent term. I have no problem with attacking homophobes; if that's what you mean, say it.
posted by languagehat at 7:18 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


No culture has survived, except for those surviving.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 7:22 AM on March 13, 2008


digaman: If you're not careful, the council will take away your card.

For those not in the know: the council is the ruling body of the Homosexual Conspiracy Community. Formerly known as HOMINTERN (an Auden coinage), it's stayed current with the times and is now known as 'Al Gaeda'.

Of course we're not supposed to talk about it, so shhh!
posted by sixswitch at 7:29 AM on March 13, 2008 [4 favorites]


I think we can all agree that regardless of ethnic or geographical origin, economic status or religion, ignorant bigots are a threat to the lives, liberties and pursuits of happiness of the greater population. What non-violent methods can we, as a group, use to remove ignorant bigots from positions of power and influence and prevent the population of ignorant bigots from growing in the future?
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:31 AM on March 13, 2008


The Protocols of the Elders of Fire Island.
posted by Eideteker at 7:36 AM on March 13, 2008 [3 favorites]


What non-violent methods can we, as a group, use to remove ignorant bigots from positions of power...

Voting.

...and influence and prevent the population of ignorant bigots from growing in the future?

Education.
posted by DU at 7:38 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


"If you are a shitkicking hillbilly and not filled with insane hatred towards homosexuals, great, but you're in the extreme minority."

This, and the rest of the "hillbilly" meme is some of the dumbest, most ignorant commentary I've read in a long time.
posted by oddman at 7:39 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


Leviticus 20:13: If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.

Leviticus 24:16: And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death.

Exodus 21:17: He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
Did she even READ the book she claims to be defending?
posted by TechnoLustLuddite at 7:39 AM on March 13, 2008


It was believed by conservatives that the Homintern deliberately manipulated the culture to encourage homosexuality by promoting camp programs like the popular 1960s TV series Batman.

Totally busted: the astounding topography of Burt Ward's leotard did have the effect of "encouraging" my nascent homosexuality on idle afternoons. Not that the former boy wonder ever tried to exploit that fact, or anything.
posted by digaman at 7:50 AM on March 13, 2008


And that no society that has embraced gay culture has survived.

What she actually said:
"No society that has embraced homosexuality has lasted more than a few decades, so it is the death knell of this country."
posted by ericb at 7:54 AM on March 13, 2008


If one focuses too much on homos as if they were as impending a danger as Hurricane Katrina, you may miss the real Katrina.

Well, ya' know, according to Pastor John Hagee, God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because of "a gay pride parade....filled with sexual sin."
"All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.

The newspaper carried the story in our local area, that was not carried nationally, that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it would was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride parades.

So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the Day of Judgment, and I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans." *
posted by ericb at 8:05 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Roses strewn in the path - poem by Kurt Tucholsky

You have to treat them sweet and nice, frighten them not-they are so soft! You must with palm leaves go around them, mindful of their specialness! If your dog barks, then pull his leash-: Kiss the Fascists wherever you meet.

If in their meetings they incite, say: "Yes and Amen - with greatest pleasure! Here you have me - smash me to bits!" And should they beat, then praise their effort. For it is, after all, just their business to beat! Kiss the Fascists wherever you meet.

And if they shoot - oh for love of God, do you really value so much this life? That's just a pacifistic-fad! Why not be a sacrifice? Call them: the sweet little lambies, give them bonbons and candies ... And if you should feel right in your gut the Hitler-dagger, cold and deep-: Kiss the Fascists, Kiss the Fascists, Kiss the Fascists, wherever you meet-!
posted by kolophon at 8:09 AM on March 13, 2008 [3 favorites]


I this whole time, I've been supporting HOMINTERN because of my love of Hominy. I guess that explains all the weird looks at the meetings.
posted by absalom at 8:09 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Tolerance. We teach tolerance of all things do we not? So it is completely acceptable for this teacher to allow this child to say something like that and not do anything because the teacher must be tolerant? God forbid we raise our temper about anything.

Straw man, dude. There's a third option between "do something hateful" and "do nothing." It's "do something that isn't driven by hatred." For what it's worth, good teachers spend most of their time exercising that third option anyway.

Tell the kid he's wrong. Explain why. Let him know how frustrated you are. Hell, give him detention for a month if you think it'll help. Just stop short of telling him that you hate him, you hate his family, you hate his community and you hate everything they stand for. Pretty simple, really.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:10 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


One topic point that my girlfriend and I often discuss is the hypocrisy in focusing on and being enraged by homosexuality by some Christians. Even if you consider homosexuality a sin, there are plenty of other sins, more widespread, more damaging that should be addressed...like murdering other people. Like adultery. Like well, everything that falls under the Ten Commandments not to do. The big ten are supposed to be the ultimate regulations, the ones that matter most, and I don't see a gay lifestyle being listed among them.

The difference it seems is that being gay is something most of these people believe they can never be, so harp on it, rather than the sins they can and often seem to be culpable of.

Its completely frustrating to think how many good things could be done in the Christian name if the same force behind this bigotry and fear were directed towards those goals. More so, its frustrating of how many good things are done in the Christian, but then that name is still smeared by those who hate and claim to worship the same God that I, and many others do.
posted by Atreides at 8:17 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


The Homosexual Agenda!
posted by ericb at 8:22 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


The difference it seems is that being gay is something most of these people believe they can never be truly are and can't deal with it openly, so [they] harp on it,* rather than the sins they can and often seem to be culpable of.

* - and have sexual liasions in private (or public toilets ala Larry Craig).
posted by ericb at 8:25 AM on March 13, 2008


*liaisons*
posted by ericb at 8:28 AM on March 13, 2008


Not to denigrate the plight of homosexuals or Islamists that have to put up with Kern's ilk. But she is pathetically laughable and the people who elected her are, by and large, nothing more than hateful christians living in fear of their hateful god.
.
posted by notreally at 8:35 AM on March 13, 2008


I for one go to the doctor when I have sexual liasions.
posted by sixswitch at 8:36 AM on March 13, 2008


Oh, and good link, ericb.
posted by sixswitch at 8:39 AM on March 13, 2008


Not to be outdone, a Scottish Catholic bishop has a go at the gays "huge and well-orchestrated conspiracy", in a speech where he vents his anger at the affrontery of homosexual groups attending Holocaust Memorial Day, and bemoans the fact that Ian McKellen gets a knighthood instead of being sent to jail. Lovely chap.
posted by flashboy at 8:47 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


In regards to DecemberBoy, whose comments on metafilter I find ignorant and ill informed, especially during his tirades against provincials and Christians, which is pretty much every comment the person has ever made (and his sense of the history of popular music to be laughable to the point of tears, especially when he's railing against hipsters--but that's true of a lot of mefites on a variety of subjects), we should keep in mind that he probably hovers around the age of 16. If not physically, then definitely mentally.

Also, Oklahoma did give us Anita Bryant, so maybe he does have a very skewed and amazingly dull point.

As for Kern and her ilk, all I have to say is I guess I'll see you in hell. They've got all the good bands, anyway.
posted by sleepy pete at 8:47 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Interesting comment over at Topix:
"Jesse Kern, Sally’s son, was raised in a strict Baptist environment. If your claims are true [that he is gay] then you must blame her and her husband for his turning out that way. Most gays aren’t out there breaking the law and engaging in public sex acts and solicitation. Jesse chose criminal behavior to act out on his desires.

…I see in this foolish woman much anger and resentment. Her beliefs are challenged within herself, because if she stands by them then she must accept her part in her son being a homosexual. She isn’t strong enough to do that. Instead, she has created a paranoid delusion that there is some vast conspiracy of gays infiltrating schools and governments to turn others gay and force their lifestyles on everyone. Her subconscious has created this great gay evil so she doesn’t have to blame herself and she says her son as a victim.

Had the gays infiltrated Jesse’s school and indoctrinated him then? Funny, how he attended Baptist schools. His attendence [sic] at Oklahoma Baptist University was marred by his repeated censure for cruising the school’s toilets. Had he been able to live his life openly he would not have had to engage in such actions."
posted by ericb at 8:50 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


I can't wait for the day when these hatefilled people will, very humbly, ask for our forgiveness.
posted by MotherTucker at 9:00 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


with apologies to Lily F'n White...

I'd say that I can't wait for a gay hairdresser to lose it and hack Sally Kern's hair to pieces, but it's obvious she's using a straight hairdresser for that already.
posted by crataegus at 9:14 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Morning guys! What's... oh.

Regarding hillbillies, Rep. Kern represents District 84, which is in the middle of Oklahoma City. Her constituency looks to be about a third the whiter-than-whitebread suburbs of Warr Acres and Bethany (which latter is built around Southern Nazarene University, the chief training school for a small fundamendalist denomination. My little sister went there.) The rest of her district is poorer and shades Latino.

Her husband, Pastor Bob, responds to the hundreds of hate- and filth-filled pro-homosexual e-mails from U-Tube, a pro-gay website.

Link posted advisedly. Please do not poke the Baptists.
posted by ormondsacker at 9:18 AM on March 13, 2008 [3 favorites]


Many years ago - in the early 1990s - I attended a special meeting of Oshawa's education board concerning whether gay support groups would be allowed in high schools or not. There was a speaker there whose speech was eerily similar to Sally Kern's.

As I recall, they read a screed from NAMBLA about how (very) young children would be targeted and made to embrace a "gay lifestyle"; you can probably imagine how bad it got. It was vile and sickening and, aside from a handful of people there from the local AIDS committee, no one objected to this or seemed to even think it particularly strange that it was being read in this context.

So I'm kind of buoyed by this. Not only because it shows that people's reactions to this hatred have changed, but because it's happening in the US, and in an election year.
posted by stinkycheese at 9:19 AM on March 13, 2008


Ellen DeGeneres' response (YT). Fantastic.
posted by spish at 9:25 AM on March 13, 2008 [9 favorites]


This week's Savage Love is very relevant and moving. Made me cry.

This link needs to be posted again in case anyone missed it. It's the antidote to that miserable woman's screed, and it's the much more precise way of saying what I think some of the people in this thread are trying to say about how some kinds of people don't deserve any respect at all until they learn the meaning of the word.

Here's Savage's money line:

Your classmates are making you miserable now because they know, deep down in their little black hearts, that their lives are going to be duller than day-old douche water compared to yours. Their lives aren't going to be dull because they're straight, TALI, but because the value they place on conformity—that's the reason they feel they have a right to abuse you now—is a prison they've constructed around themselves.

Amen, brother. This is how a civilization dies: by self-inforced stagnation. If you truly love America, keep it queer - in Greil Marcus' sense as well as the more immediately salient one.
posted by gompa at 9:26 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


Ellen DeGeneres' response (YT). Fantastic.

Oh, that is good. I ♥ Ellen.
posted by ericb at 9:33 AM on March 13, 2008


Her husband, Pastor Bob, responds to the hundreds of hate- and filth-filled pro-homosexual e-mails from U-Tube, a pro-gay website.

Indeed he does. And he follows that response with this:

Next Saturday we will have a work day for men who can get up on a lift and clean windows and paint. Steve Pierce has made it possible to have this lift available so we can clean windows and paint on the 3rd floor of our buildings. That will take a few men.

Pastor Bob wants men. Strong, active, capable men. A few of them.

I have nothing further, Your Honor.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:34 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


We need to make these hillbillies wear flannel armbands so that they can be easily identified. I don't want to have to listen to what someone actually says to figure out whether they're bigoted or not.
posted by XMLicious at 9:39 AM on March 13, 2008


Who says you can't be both queer and a shitkicking hillbilly? Or that there's something wrong with being either or both? Kern is just another shrieking harpy distraught because all her beautiful wickedness is melting. She, and others of her ilk, simply can't stand the overall worldwide trend (in fits and starts and pendulum swings) toward greater acceptance of the queering of sexuality and gender. She's unexceptional, mediocre at best, and giving her Warhol's promised 15 minutes isn't going to change anything.
posted by notashroom at 9:40 AM on March 13, 2008


Also from the Savage Love link:

My boyfriend is 17. He came out to his parents at Christmas, and our parents met for the first time last night. We don't have a question. We just wanted to thank you and thank all the other gay people who came out back when it was much tougher to do so. Our parents wouldn't have reacted the way they did if it weren't for all you guys that already came out.

Made me cry.

What I want to know is: There's stuff in the Bible about not lying, right? Has someone told Sally Kern that she should check that out?
posted by rtha at 9:44 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


Ok, so you're like the white person who says, "When I use the word 'nigger,' I just mean 'ignorant person.' Whites can be niggers too!"

Me : Hillbilly :: Chris Rock : Nigger

(The SAT should have a section on offensive racial epithets)
posted by Skorgu at 9:45 AM on March 13, 2008


A straight friend asked me yesterday "had I seen this gay bashing video yet?" Like "have you seen this lolcats thing?" or "have you seen this funny Star Wars kid video?" I said I wasn't interested, the last thing I need to see is yet another person who hates me.
posted by Nelson at 9:49 AM on March 13, 2008


I went to high school in Bartlesville, OK. Many of the most well-loved, poular kids in school were out homosexuals, one of whom was our prom king.

A lot of Oklahoma, and all the midwest/west/country/world is still like this, shrieking at those different from them in order to have someone to blame for their lot in life. A lot of them will use religion or other mystical leaps in logic to make it work, if need be. But that's not everyone in the world/country/west/midwest/Oklahoma. So let's cool down just a little bit here on the sweeping generalizations.

On the one hand, she said some things that might have made some impressionable pre-bigots a little more hateful. And that's bad.

OTOH, she's now a nation-wide fool, and is probably neutered of any power she had in her position, so overall good, no?

This is one of the few situations where I believe that what we're doing here is exactly the sort of solution we're looking for. Keep the discussion going. Continually cal people out on their bullshit when they do something like this. Circulate the Tucker letter, and the Savage love article, and the Ellen clip, and as the older generation gives way to the new, there'll be fewer and fewer people carrying the torch for hate, and they'll look sillier and sillier.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:54 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


The very fact that I'm talking to you like this today puts me in jeopardy.
-- Sally Kern

Yes. It does, because it reveals to everyone that you are a bigoted, uninformed, hate monger, who is trying to wrap herself in the flags of moral-virtue and the health and safety of others to promote her fear mongering agenda. It puts you at risk of being held up as an example of the kind of thinking that continues to corrupt and damage our country far worse than terrorism, Islam, or homosexuality; the kind of thinking that promotes nothing but fear and distrust, and encourages people to judge others based on ignorant and ugly misconceptions.

You are correct. It puts you in jeopardy of everyone discovering that you are a worthless human being.
posted by quin at 9:54 AM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


ormondsacker: Regarding hillbillies, Rep. Kern represents District 84, which is in the middle of Oklahoma City. Her constituency looks to be about a third the whiter-than-whitebread suburbs of Warr Acres and Bethany (which latter is built around Southern Nazarene University, the chief training school for a small fundamendalist denomination. My little sister went there.) The rest of her district is poorer and shades Latino.

Shhhhh! We're not supposed to talk about homophobia in the Latino community. This violates the cardinal rule: that poor, uneducated, pasty hillfolk are not only the secret privileged elite, but the Pandora's box from which all evil springs.
This trope will keep the majority poor on the other side of the aisle from the minority poor, and vice versa; this preserves the compact under which the Left and Right have coexisted for years. Please consult your handbook!

posted by kid ichorous at 10:07 AM on March 13, 2008


Ah, but how does it read if you replace every reference to homosexuality with a reference to Baptists?

The same, but without the surrounding context of deeply entrenched and systematic legal and social discrimination. It would be just as hateful and just as bad in principle, but in practice it wouldn't have the weight of the legal system behind it. There's no place in the country where I can be fired just for being Baptist, however quietly I may do so. The same is not true for sexual orientation.

I feel bad for Rep. Kern's son, if the rumors are true. Hang in there, dude.

What non-violent methods can we, as a group, use to remove ignorant bigots from positions of power and influence and prevent the population of ignorant bigots from growing in the future?

Be supportive. Be visible. Make it clear that you don't accept the normalization of homophobia. If you're straight, be a straight ally, and not just a bystander.

Most importantly, vote your conscience. Make a point of knowing the votes on civil rights votes from your political reps (at all political levels, on civil rights of all flavors). Write them when they vote against key bills. HRC is a great way to stay current on Congressional activity. Rep. Kern is, unfortunately, typical in saying exactly what she believes on this when she thinks it's behind closed doors. The louder pundits make homophobia seem like a foaming-at-the-mouth loudness, but it's really mostly quite silent and normal. But votes on legislation will reflect a politician's real stance pretty clearly. People like her are very dangerous, but it takes a lot of quieter people supporting them to keep them in power. Fight that.
posted by Tehanu at 10:47 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


Top 9 societies that have embraced gay culture and consequently been destroyed:

1. Spartans


Um, Noooo. Didn't you see that documentary 300? The Spartans were totally hot, oiled up hetero champs. It was the Persians that was a bunch'a durn queers.
posted by papakwanz at 10:47 AM on March 13, 2008


So - anyone wondering what her political opposition was like? I'm wondering if the voters had a choice or if her opponent was just as weird as her. Or worse.
Where I live you wind up choosing/voting between two douchebags all the time. So I think I will haul in the not so kind comment I made about her constituency upstream a bit.
.
posted by notreally at 11:15 AM on March 13, 2008


"As a Christian I love homosexuals," - Sally Kern

"Please stop." - Homosexuals everywhere

Because, you know, if this is an expression of love....I guess it's better than a kick in the pants.

I do wish, though, that I had one-tenth the power that these whacked-out 'phobes ascribe to me. Destroy marriage? Not interested. Break up families? BOOOOring. Turn straight women gay with a single glance? Now that's a superpower I can get dig!
posted by rtha at 11:25 AM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


Turn straight women gay with a single glance? Now that's a superpower I can get dig!

Please, please tell me how I can rid myself of this superpower.
posted by kid ichorous at 11:39 AM on March 13, 2008 [7 favorites]


Just again on the subject of geography: the assumption that Oklahoma (or, insert your choice of "shitkicking hillbilly" state/county/municipality here) is Scary Anti-Gay Land and the rest of the nation is humming along in Gay Positivity Happy Mode is fine, if you want to believe it, but it isn't reality.

My partner grew up in Oklahoma, and there are some anti-gay people there, and some of them have louder mouths and meaner dispositions than others -- Sally Kern is just expressing in public (albeit unknowing that she would end up virally distributed, apparently) what many feel in private, which is what is obvious in the draconian legislation and the boiling dirty looks and the sudden rips of furious burning rubber from the pickup truck next to you or in front of you if you're a homosexual and live somewhere, could be almost anywhere, in the United States or much of the rest of the so-called civilized world. It ain't just Oklahoma.

And, yeah, I live in the Bay Area, that so-called glorious Gay Paradise. The one place in the world (other than high school, which is a different story) I've ever been hit with the epithet "You faggot" in public was walking out of a San Francisco Financial District high-rise one pleasant sunny afternoon. Fags get the shit kicked out of them in the Castro, homos get the shit kicked out of them in Chelsea, queers get the shit kicked out of them in West Hollywood.

Here in good old gay-friendly California, courtesy of the Traditional Values Coalition, we're probably going to have a measure on the ballot in November that will take away what few legal rights we have. All in the name of, you know, keepin' marriage pure and holy and all that bullshit.
posted by blucevalo at 11:40 AM on March 13, 2008 [6 favorites]


blucevalo: Yep. The only place I've been really, seriously in danger of being queerbashed was in Dupont Circle, in DC.

kid ichorus: You must've been standing in the wrong line when the Great Whatever was handing out gender assignments. Maybe you saw my high school boyfriend there? To my knowledge, he dated two more women after me who later also came out.
posted by rtha at 11:48 AM on March 13, 2008


The Ballad of Sally Kern

Heed the words of Sally Kern!
posted by anthill at 11:53 AM on March 13, 2008


There's no place in the country where I can be fired just for being Baptist, however quietly I may do so.

[pedant level="extreme"]

There are some jobs where you can be fired for being Baptist, even quietly, everywhere in the country.

Catholic priest. Lutheran priest. Episcopal priest. Orthodox priest. Bishop. Archbishop. Imam. Muezzin, probably. Mormon minister. Rabbi, probably or at least mostly. Methodist minister. Etc.

[/pedant]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:54 AM on March 13, 2008


but the talk in the community here is that Kern has a gay son

then God exists, and She is a lesbian.


And you "shitkicking hillbillies" dumbasses: you're no better than the people you're spewing hate against

of course, because a gay American President and his millions of gay supporters have recently tried to make evangelicals officially second class citizens in the constitution by denying them the right to marry each other; evangelical Christianity is of course illegal in many US states due to the pandering to gay voters of powerful gay politicians; and gay thugs routinely harass, beat up, and even kill, Matthew Shepard-like, the poor persecuted evangelicals.

keep rewriting history and keep equating the victims of hatred to their tormentors all in the name of, what else, "fairness". but then, as a straight white male you're clearly the target of horrendous discrimination so one's heart goes out to you.
posted by matteo at 12:21 PM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


Oklahoma does not have hillbillies, it has rednecks.
posted by Quonab at 12:23 PM on March 13, 2008


I was fine until ormondsacker linked to Pastor Bob's (Kern's husband) summation of events. Up until then, I was able to roll my eyes and say, "Oh, just another elected Republican pandering to her base, spouting ignorance and hypocrisy. Of course she has a gay son! And look at her hair! Why do homophobic elected Republicans of the female persuasion always have lesbian hair??"

It happens so often, at this point it doesn't outrage me so much as entertain me. Why? Perspective. Because during my closeted adolescence in small-town in Texas, people would have believed her. And by "people," I mean my people. Today? Today my people will just roll their eyes too. Because they've known for 15 years that I'm gay, and they've learned from that, thank god. They know that my "sexuality" isn't terroristic. They know that my "lifestyle" isn't dangerous. They know that I don't have an "agenda," other than to be treated just like everyone else. And mostly, they don't think of me as having a "sexuality" or a "lifestyle." They just think of me as me.

I know there are bigots out there still. I'm reminded of that every time I visit my hometown. Going grocery shopping with my mother, there's always this voice in the back of my head that says "Remember to walk like a girl!" So yeah, it's there. And it's dangerous. And we still face so much hatred. It's scary, but usually faceless -- until the Sally Kerns pop up and remind us of it. But even then, like I said, sometimes you just have to chuckle at it.

That's until the Pastor Bobs write shit like ormondsacker linked to. To wit:
My wife, Sally,was attacked this weekend by hundreds of pro-homosexual e-mails from all over the world.... I told the people about the situation and then preached a message on having God dwell amongst [us].... During our prayer time in the middle of the service, Jack and Phyllis Poe... came up to the choir and hugged Sally and prayed for her.... At the end of the services Sterling Arntzen had Sally and I sit on the front pew so the people could surround us and pray. Gary Pound, our deacon chairman lead [sic] the prayer. It was a beautiful time.

After the service, Sally and I went to lunch with the Poes. They told us an amazing thing. They knew nothing about what was happening to Sally when they came to worship at Olivet. They just felt a strong urging of the Lord to attend. After hearing what was happening to Sally they knew and we knew the Lord had sent them to lift Sally up. It was a confirmation to us all that God is doing something and is working in our behalf. It was obviously one of those "God things" we refer to at times. The church praying for us was a tremendous up lifting experience as well.
And see, that's where I lose it. Poor, poor babies. No, no, no, no -- you bigots don't get to play the persecution card. You don't get to whine about being "attacked."

Being "attacked" is being followed down the street by a group of frat boys who are quite vocal about their belief that "the dyke wants a dick." Being "persecuted" is when you're asked to either stop holding hands with your girlfriend or to leave the coffee shop, because you're making others uncomfortable. Being "discriminated against" is receiving anonymous emails from a coworker threatening to 'out' you (even though you're not even in), and then finding a butcher knife in your yard after you refuse to be less gay.

Being "attacked" is not spewing hate-filled nonsense, then being called on it. No ma'am. You weren't attacked. You were noticed.

But at least you have the promise of the front pew. You have your fellow bigots to pray for you. You have your "God things," and your god sends people to "lift you up"! How cool is that?!

It's that part that angers me. Folks on the right spread hate, encourage bigotry, and then they're, like, "OMG we're so persecuted for our beliefs why can't the world just let us be waaaaaaah!!!"

Personally, I'm perfectly happy to let them be. They can have their prayer groups and their potlucks and their Wednesday night Bible study. They can even discuss me, and people like me, at those gatherings, and they can agree that they're happy not to be me. I'm fine with all that.

But they can't have it both ways. Can't be both the persecutor and the persecuted. Doesn't work that way.

And what REALLY irks me is that as their stock dwindles and the public's comfort level with gayness increases (and it is increasing), they'll just claim more and more persecution, more and more intolerance toward their (dangerous! ha!) lifestyle.

So that's what really stirs my pot. Gah.

Please, everyone, hug a queer person today.
posted by mudpuppie at 12:25 PM on March 13, 2008 [39 favorites]


There's no place in the country where I can be fired just for being Baptist, however quietly I may do so. The same is not true for sexual orientation.
Actually, that's not true. The 1964 Civil Rights Act protects employees from discrimination on the basis of "race, color, religion, sex or national origin," but only by employers with 15 or more employees. Combine that with "At-Will" or "Right to Work" states and/or states that do not extend that protection, and you have thousands of employers nationally who can fire you just for being Baptist any day of the week and twice on Tuesday.*



*IANAB. IATQ.
posted by notashroom at 12:40 PM on March 13, 2008


There are some jobs where you can be fired for being Baptist, even quietly, everywhere in the country.

Catholic priest. Lutheran priest. Episcopal priest. Orthodox priest. Bishop. Archbishop. Imam. Muezzin, probably. Mormon minister. Rabbi, probably or at least mostly. Methodist minister. Etc.


True, but in those cases it's directly related to performing the job. It isn't discrimination, so it isn't really a parallel.

I've heard there is a patch for pedantry. Or rather, a practice. It involves an Aqua Teen Hunger Force marathon and Funions. May I suggest Season 1?

But they can't have it both ways. Can't be both the persecutor and the persecuted.

It's what gives people who oppress the moral high ground, in their own eyes. At the same time, they believe that they are helping the people they're hurting. A person can do terrible things if it's done with a clean conscience. The evil in human behavior doesn't usually self-identify. People who persecute tend to think of themselves to be the ones at risk, the victims, the ones who are persecuted.
posted by Tehanu at 12:40 PM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


My personal definition of 'shitkicking hillbillies' isn't geography or religion dependent. Radical islamic terrorists are the shitkicking hillbillies of the middle east.

Huh, it's pretty much the identical reasoning one of my racist friends from back home and waaaay back in the day used to defend his use of the word "nigger."
posted by nanojath at 12:42 PM on March 13, 2008


When you respond to bigotry with bigotry, doesn't that make you a bigot, too?
posted by dw at 12:44 PM on March 13, 2008


Of course she has a gay son! And look at her hair!

"Kern has also received angry phone calls from Blanche Devereaux, who wants her hair back."
posted by ericb at 12:45 PM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Nicely put, mudpuppie. One thing:

Please, everyone well-built Oklahoman lad between 18–25, hug a queer person today send me an email with photos of you and your friends.

FTFY. Although I guess I could always just go buy Bruce Weber's latest book.

On preview: there should be a corollary to Godwin's Law dealing with references to the Golden Girls.
posted by sixswitch at 12:48 PM on March 13, 2008


Staff Editorial: The Vista | University of Central Oklahoma
“An elected state representative of Oklahoma and Oklahoma City recently committed a grievous disservice to the people of the state.

Rep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City) did an excellent job of misrepresenting her constituents and the State of Oklahoma when she spoke using what many would consider to be homophobic rhetoric.

The media has made numerous reports about Kern's quote ‘I honestly think it's the biggest threat ... our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat.’ Many opinion threads have pointed out she has a right to express her opinion as granted by the First Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights.

I can't argue that fact, however, when a person is elected to represent the people of a district, city, state, etc., their voice ceases to be their own, and they now must consider what consequences their words will have on their constituents.

In my opinion it's ignorance and intolerance that are the greatest threat to this nation. Kern's comments are evidence of her own ignorance and intolerance of at least two groups of our society and the issues concerning them.

Kern said, ‘Not everybody's lifestyle is equal, just like not all religions are equal.’ Yet, the Declaration of Independence states, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’

Kern also said in her lecture that the ‘homosexual agenda is destroying this country.’ She went on to say, ‘Gays are infiltrating city councils,’ and that student organizations such as the Gay and Straight Alliance are entering our schools to ‘indoctrinate’ our children.

Kern said she taught school for 20 years, but then said, ‘We're not teaching facts and knowledge anymore folks. We're teaching indoctrination.’ According to Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary, to indoctrinate has two definitions: to instruct, or ‘to imbue with a usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view or principle.’ Well, I'd have to agree in Kern's case. Her lecture most certainly provided a sectarian point of view regarding Islam and homosexuality.

Her remark regarding the duration of societies that have embraced homosexuality only lends more evidence to this argument. She said, ‘Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than a few decades.’ What studies indicate this? Ancient Roman and Greek cultures accepted homosexuality and each lasted for centuries.

Kern's remarks made it quite clear that she is in fact ignorant of the role of homosexuality in ancient history, the place of gays in our society, and also the health related issues concerning homosexuality. Her comments further demonstrate that she has little understanding of Islam or the Quran. In fact she knew quite well what the ramifications of her remarks were as she said, ‘Talking to you like this today puts me in jeopardy.’

Elected government officials have a duty to represent the interests of their constituents, and to remember that when they speak they are in fact speaking on behalf of those constituents. Also, the people, as members of a democratic society, have a responsibility to elect representatives who will represent them best and who will at least have the common sense not to use such intolerant rhetoric when speaking in a public forum.”
posted by ericb at 12:51 PM on March 13, 2008


The Tulsa World's editorial yesterday:
A recording of Kern stating that the "homosexual agenda is just destroying this nation" and represents a greater threat to America than "terrorism or Islam" is on the video-sharing Web site YouTube, which has received a half million hits in four days.

Kern, who was speaking to a group of Republicans when the inflammatory remarks were secretly recorded, now claims her comments were taken out of context.

We would only hope. But unfortunately that's not what the evidence suggests. Kern, a former teacher and wife of a Baptist minister, claims that she was only exercising her free speech rights. Those would be the same rights that led her on a crusade a few years back to pull library books off school shelves and to cut library funding.

Kern indeed has the right of free speech but she also enjoys the privilege of suffering the consequences. So far she's received at least 5,000 e-mails, most spanking her for suggesting "the homosexual lifestyle is destroying our country."

Joe Solmonese, head of the 700,000-member Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian civil rights group, has written a letter to Gov. Brad Henry, suggesting that words matter, especially coming from an elected official whose job it is to represent all her constituents -- an official who should set an example.

That apparently isn't how Kern's Republican colleagues see it. Instead of flinching at her intolerance, they appeared to embrace it Monday with a big group hug and a standing ovation for their YouTube star.

Their reaction is one that should be remembered by more tolerant Oklahomans come election time. Equating sexual orientation with knocking down the World Trade Center is divisive and dangerous, not to mention dumb.

Rep. Kern may think she speaks only for herself but in the eyes of the nation her vitriol slops over on all Oklahomans.
posted by dw at 1:01 PM on March 13, 2008


*hugs mudpuppie*

*hugs self*
posted by jokeefe at 1:02 PM on March 13, 2008


I feel tremendously for her son. And, as usual, I'm really aghast at how people feel they have the right to dictate to their children in such a way. My son could bring home Kang and Kodos if he wanted and announce their true love, and as long as they treat each other well and they're happy, that's good enough for me.

And, I figure, it would be good enough for Jesus, too. *thanks parents once again for Unitarian religious upbringing*
posted by jokeefe at 1:05 PM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Um, I'm going to put in here, people are using a term that I don't believe they understand the meaning of. People use the term "evangelical" to mean the extremely conservative brand of Christianity. This is a mistake of symantics. The term they are looking for is "fundamentalist" or the following of such churches is called "evangelicalism" (not to be confused with evangelism). It is certainly possible to be a liberal, abortionist, gay-loving, gay-luuvin', evangelical Christian. You would be hard pressed to find these sentiments professed publicly in a fundamentalist church. You can find numerous Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran (no not THOSE Lutherans), UCC, and even Unitarians that profess evangelism as a part of their theology.

I just wanted to clear that up, again. I will post it again, though I'm pretty sure that the term is lost forever and has been coopted by the ultra-right. Then again the whole concept of Christianity seems to have been coopted by them anyway, God's frozen chosen, the only true believers.
posted by Pollomacho at 1:07 PM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Actually, that's not true. The 1964 Civil Rights Act protects employees from discrimination on the basis of "race, color, religion, sex or national origin," but only by employers with 15 or more employees.

Ok, my previous wording stated that as an absolute when it isn't. The point is, there is federal protection against discrimination in hiring and firing based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Other laws have added pregnancy, age, and disability to the list. There are some exceptions to each case, but the law vastly changed employment practices in much of the country. It doesn't cover every job because there are people whose employer is not covered by Title VII. There are state laws that fill in some of the gaps. There is no such protection at the federal level for sexual orientation or gender expression.

Interestingly, a 2006 sexual harassment case made it to the Supreme Court, even though the company was smaller than 15 people, because the defendant didn't argue that point in the original case.
posted by Tehanu at 1:08 PM on March 13, 2008


Many opinion threads have pointed out she has a right to express her opinion as granted by the First Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights.

Of course it is. Just like it's our right to point out that she's a dingbat and deserves to be lashed with a wet whip.

You know who else hated homosexuals?
posted by sour cream at 1:27 PM on March 13, 2008


Ok, my previous wording stated that as an absolute when it isn't. The point is, there is federal protection against discrimination in hiring and firing based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Other laws have added pregnancy, age, and disability to the list. There are some exceptions to each case, but the law vastly changed employment practices in much of the country. It doesn't cover every job because there are people whose employer is not covered by Title VII. There are state laws that fill in some of the gaps. There is no such protection at the federal level for sexual orientation or gender expression.
You're right, and I was being pedantic. Gender and sexuality should be protected classes, just as sex and race are. I'm probably just bitter because I'm a queer in a "Right to Work" state and the odds of my peers and me getting federal or state job protection in my lifetime seem pretty damn low.
posted by notashroom at 1:58 PM on March 13, 2008


Honestly, this just makes it all the more clear how much better things are getting. That an openly gay talk show host can share a clip of this and the whole non-political/ordinary people audience shakes their heads and laughs, and applauds when the host says she "sounds a bit confused" is just evidence that Sally Kern is on the losing side. The Dan Savage letter from the kid about how his parents accidently caught him fooling around with his BF and were cool about it, the general attitude of the local papers and on YouTube, shows me that though of course there are exceptions, things have progressed a lot in the last few decades.

Her lack of a sense of history is the most depressing part to me :).
1, it's arguable there's never really been a culture that's properly embraced a fully equal understanding of homosexuality as personal lifestyle etc, but insofar as it's been accepted at all, Greece & Rome are obvious contenders, and that she apparently thinks neither lasted more than 20 years or so is worrying...
2, during slavey we could have said, no culture that's rejected slavery has ever survived! Or during the women's movement, no culture that's accepted feminism has survived! Etc. Just because a certain form of progress hasn't caused the immortality of a particular nation doesn't mean it's a bad idea.
posted by mdn at 2:11 PM on March 13, 2008


Hmm... would it be true to say no culture that has accepted Christianity has ever survived?
posted by Artw at 2:54 PM on March 13, 2008


Mar 12, 2008 04:44 EST -- With a generation of Christian right leaders dead or aging, the founder of the conservative evangelical group Focus on the Family says he's concerned about the movement's future leadership.

James Dobson told a group of Christian broadcasters Tuesday night that the passing of Jerry Falwell, the Rev. D. James Kennedy and Ruth Bell Graham represent the end of an era.

"It causes me to wonder who will be left to carry the banner when this generation of leaders is gone," Dobson told an audience of nearly 1,400 at the National Religious Broadcasters conference. "The question is, will the younger generation heed the call? Who will defend the unborn child in the years to come? Who will plead for the Terri Schiavos of the world? Who's going to fight for the institution of marriage, which is on the ropes today."


Praise the Lord, we need to screw like crazy and raise more bigots.
posted by blucevalo at 3:38 PM on March 13, 2008


the ancient Greeks embraced homosexuality and are now gone. Exactly what was the rah-rah I'm-a-lumberjack-and-that's-okay heterosexual concurrent culture from that time that is still around?

Dunno that I'd call it rah-rah I'm-a-lumberjack-and-that's-okay heterosexual, per se, but the Chinese are the Energizer Bunny of cultures.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 4:24 PM on March 13, 2008


Who's the bigot who posted the (now apparently deleted) "shitkicking hillbillies" comment?

Whoever it is is on par with Sally Kern.
posted by oaf at 5:26 PM on March 13, 2008


I am surprised that no one has yet commented that this hate-monging bitch was elected to represent her fellow citizens.

Now either she was alarmingly good at hiding her hate, or there the voting majority in her area are hate-mongering homophobes.

I'm not sure what can be done if the former is true — better campaign debates/questions, I suppose. But if hate-mongering is not the norm in the USA, I suggest the latter problem can be easily enough solved: get off your lazy asses and start voting, goddamnit!

Until people start upholding their end of the bargain, US democracy is going to continue to be a pathetic sham.

Rep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City) did an excellent job of misrepresenting her constituents and the State of Oklahoma when she spoke using what many would consider to be homophobic rhetoric.

FFS, "what many would consider"?! It outright IS homophobic rhetoric, and failing to call it for what it is only serves to support it.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:31 PM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Who's the bigot who posted the (now apparently deleted) "shitkicking hillbillies" comment?

Won't someone please think of the shitkicking hillbillies?

I am on record as disagreeing the the Shitkicking Hillbilly Agenda.
posted by crossoverman at 6:48 PM on March 13, 2008


Until people start upholding their end of the bargain, US democracy is going to continue to be a pathetic sham.

Pardon me for questioning this rhetoric, but there is no shortage of elected officials in Canada who have "hate-monging" anti-gay records, including, for one, the prime minister, Stephen Harper. I don't see that Canada's higher voting ratios did any good at keeping the likes of him out of office. I'm not saying that he's in the same league as Sally Kern, but he isn't exactly André Boisclair either.

It goes back to my original comment about geography. Gay people can and do get the shit kicked out of them in Canada too. Yes, gays have more rights in Canada; yes, they can get married there. But if Stephen Harper and Stockwell Day and the Conservatives had a larger majority in Parliament, they wouldn't be able to.

So the misconception that things are the way they are for gays in the US only because not enough lazy-assed Americans vote for pro-gay politicians rings a little hollow.
posted by blucevalo at 10:35 PM on March 13, 2008


As I said in my post, I'll concede that the term "shitkicking hillbillies" is hardly productive. OTOH, I fail to see what could actually be productive. They're hate filled loons, there's a large number of them, and unless the non-idiot states impose sanity from the outside (as they did with the racist states back in the 1960's) it will never end.

Whether you want to admit it or not, a certain area of the USA, the so-called "south", is a backwards land of idiot Christofascist thuggery, and it takes laws enacted by the federal government to overcome that crap. I live in Texas, and believe me my fellow Texans are never going to give homosexuals full citizenship; it will only happen if it is imposed from the outside. And then they'll whine, and scream about "States rights" and other nonsense, and do their best to undermine it.

As for the other crap, blow it out your collective New Age wimp ass. Homobigotry is wrong, evil in fact, and if your poor little minds can't handle that, shut up and get out of the way. Those of us with actual will to fight will, as always, solve the problem and then you can whine about how we didn't treat the homobigots with enough respect. I swear, back in the day when the big fight was abolition some people would have scolded the abolitionists for identifying slavery as evil, or for identifying slave owners as murderous thugs.

I am not required to be nice to evil, to tolerate it, or to claim that all points of view are valid. The POV of Rep. Kern and her supporters is not valid, I will not tolerate it, and it is evil. If you can't deal with reality kindly stop trying to undermine those of us who can.
posted by sotonohito at 5:15 AM on March 14, 2008 [1 favorite]


As I said in my post, I'll concede that the term "shitkicking hillbillies" is hardly productive. OTOH, I fail to see what could actually be productive.

How about "homophobes"? That's who you're against, right? Oh, no, I forgot:

Whether you want to admit it or not, a certain area of the USA, the so-called "south", is a backwards land of idiot Christofascist thuggery

So you're just another garden-variety bigot. Enjoy your self-righteous hate, and don't look into any mirrors: you might scare yourself.
posted by languagehat at 6:29 AM on March 14, 2008 [4 favorites]


Yes languagehat, I'm bigoted against those who would deny homosexuals full citizenship, how horrible. How dreadful. How dare I be bigoted against loonytoons who want to screw over their fellow citizens? The proper course of action, I suppose is to tell them they're right, to never do anything that might hurt their poor little feelings? WTF?

And, in case you didn't notice, there is a geographic tie between certain kinds of idiocy and certain kinds of evil. Jim Crow, for example, was primarily found in the former Confederacy; not that other places were exactly enlightened centers of racial harmony back in the 1960's, but to deny that it was vastly worse in the "South" is to deny reality. Why do you think this some horrible, evil, vile, thing to admit?

Not everyone in the "South" is a homobigoted Christofascist, I'm in the "South" and I'm not. But it is most concentrated here, it is centered here, the "South" is the core strength and ideological foundry of that brand of insanity, and to deny that is to deny reality. I chose not to deny reality, and to you this makes me just as bad as the homobogots in your mind? Could you explain that?
posted by sotonohito at 6:39 AM on March 14, 2008 [1 favorite]


WTF, languagehat? Give your head a shake: being intolerant of evil is not evil.

Yes, several folk here have been vulgar in their condemnation of the evil bigots that inhabit the South. Yes, evil bigots are in fact found everywhere. But perhaps a key difference is that the evil bigots elsewhere don't shoot their mouths off about it so readily.


So the misconception that things are the way they are for gays in the US only because not enough lazy-assed Americans vote for pro-gay politicians rings a little hollow.

We got stuck with that asshat Harper because Canadians were stupid fucks who, this time around, voted against the incumbent party instead of voting for a candidate. We also had a markedly lower turnout than our recent historical averages, which would indicate a fair number of lazy-assed Canadians couldn't be bothered to vote.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:38 AM on March 14, 2008


Give your head a shake: being intolerant of evil is not evil.

Of course not. But being intolerant of an entire region is. There is no difference between this fool ranting about "the South" and an Islamic militant ranting about "America the Great Satan."
posted by languagehat at 7:42 AM on March 14, 2008 [1 favorite]


They have differently flavored halitosis.
posted by breezeway at 7:50 AM on March 14, 2008


So you're just another garden-variety bigot. Enjoy your self-righteous hate, and don't look into any mirrors: you might scare yourself.
posted by languagehat at 6:29 AM

Okay, this is what ticks me off, what you are saying is that if someone hates someone it immediately makes them a bigot.

How does hating this Kern woman make me like her?

Am I supposed to say, "Oh, you poor misguided woman? How sad that you cannot relate to other people and accept them and their differences. It makes me shake my head and sigh, poor misguided woman. I feel so much better sitting here and knowing I sympathize with you, no, I don't hate as you do, I understand your need as a human being to have free unfettered beliefs, it's just a shame your's are so much different than mine. Have a peaceful day m'lady."

Fuck that.

You there, you ignorant stupid blind woman, sit down, shut up and be quiet. What gives you the right to spew such venomous bile? You thump your bible and claim that god hates gays. Well, he does, that's the old testament. Have you read the new? There's only one rule. Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
"God damn it, you've got to be kind!"

Maybe this discussion is using the wrong word. Anger is more appropriate. That woman's speech made me angry. It's okay to get angry and this is a situation where anger is called for. Someone mentioned Ghandi, he was nonviolent but do you really think he was not angry?

When a person writes a vulgarity driven statement on an online forum about someone like Kern it is an expression of anger, outrage, disgust. But here we go piling on the name-calling on those people, self-righteous, we call them. Righteousness arises from "an outraged sense of justice or morality."

I am self-righteous. I am outraged. I am bigoted against homophobes, the religious right, and AT&T.
posted by M Edward at 7:51 AM on March 14, 2008


I'm from the southeast. I found the part of the midwest I lived in for awhile to be far more homophobic. It's not a regional problem.

Relevant Indexed entry.
posted by Tehanu at 8:22 AM on March 14, 2008


I'm confused. Did someone call the evil Oklahoma lady a hillbilly? Cuz, um, she's about 1000 miles too far west for that. "God-fearing okie white trash" would be the slur of choice here, I think.
posted by Nelson at 8:31 AM on March 14, 2008


We also had a markedly lower turnout than our recent historical averages

Turnout was higher in 2006 than it was in 2004 or 2000. Depends on how far back you're averaging, I suppose.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:39 AM on March 14, 2008


Anger is more appropriate. That woman's speech made me angry. It's okay to get angry and this is a situation where anger is called for. Someone mentioned Ghandi, he was nonviolent but do you really think he was not angry?

"All people who go to England learn there at least the art of shaving, but none, to my knowledge, learn to cut their own hair. I had to learn that too. I once went to an English hair-cutter in Pretoria. He contemptuously refused to cut my hair. I certainly felt hurt, but immediately purchased a pair of clippers and cut my hair before the mirror. I succeeded more or less in cutting the front hair but I spoiled the back. The friends in the court shook with laughter.

"'What's wrong with your hair, Gandhi? Rats have been at it?'

"'No. The white barber would not condescend to touch my black hair,' said I, 'so I preferred to cut it myself, no matter how badly.'

"The reply did not surprise my friends.

"The barber was not at fault for refusing to cut my hair. There was every chance of his losing his [customers] if he should serve black men. We do not allow our barbers to serve our untouchable brethren. I got the reward of this in South Africa not once but many times, and the conviction that it was the punishment for our own sins saved me from becoming angry."

M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth (London: Phoenix Press, 1949), Part III, Chapter 9, pp. 177-179.
posted by breezeway at 8:43 AM on March 14, 2008


We got stuck with that asshat Harper because Canadians were stupid fucks who, this time around, voted against the incumbent party instead of voting for a candidate.

Well, from this side of the border, I see the Liberal party as having made the same mistakes the Democrats made in the 1970s and the GOP is currently making -- they got to believing their own bullshit and started thinking it didn't matter what crap they pulled, the average Canadian in their riding of Southeast Hockeyville would always pull their lever.

And then they discovered that voters don't like being treated like that and would rather give the other guys a try.

It says something that it was the NDP leader calling Harper on the carpet about the Obama affair, not Random White Bilingual Ontario Party Apparatchnik Who Is Currently Liberal Party Head. The Liberals need to finish removing their collective heads from the collective asses lest they wake up one morning with Parliament moved to Vancouver and Alberta as the 51st state.

/canada-derail
posted by dw at 9:45 AM on March 14, 2008 [1 favorite]


my fellow Texans are never going to give homosexuals full citizenship

Interesting. So which parts of citizenship do gays in Texas not have? Can they vote? Are they subject to habeas corpus? Can they attend whatever gathering or religious service they choose? Do they have the right to publish freely? Can they petition their government for redress?
posted by dw at 10:04 AM on March 14, 2008


The part where you're treated the same as anyone else by the state.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:48 AM on March 14, 2008


I was referring to marriage, as you know perfectly well dw. Though "not getting fired for being gay" would also be a nice thing.
posted by sotonohito at 10:50 AM on March 14, 2008


So which parts of citizenship do gays in Texas not have? ... Can they petition their government for redress?

Apparently not when it comes to marriage, adoption and all the other rights everyone else gets automagically by virtue of being willing to put Part A into Slot B with a member of the opposite sex.

I'm sorry, but it's not just the south that's a problem (although there does seem to be a disproportionate number of overly religious people there who've never bothered to read the New Testament). It's practically the whole damn country.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 11:03 AM on March 14, 2008


Okay, this is what ticks me off, what you are saying is that if someone hates someone it immediately makes them a bigot.

No, what I'm saying is that if someone hates an entire group of people (whether based on skin color, sexual preference, religion, or geographic location) without regard to their individual personalities and beliefs it immediately makes them a bigot. I'm pretty sure that's a widely accepted definition. And I'm pretty sure a lot of "progressives" who blanch in horror at the slightest hint of bigotry against groups they approve of are happy bigots when it comes to groups they know and care nothing about (Southerners, say, or Christians, just to pull names out of a hat).
posted by languagehat at 11:06 AM on March 14, 2008 [3 favorites]


Are you saying that all generalisations are the same? Bigot!
posted by Artw at 11:20 AM on March 14, 2008 [1 favorite]


what I'm saying is that if someone hates an entire group of people (whether based on skin color, sexual preference, religion, or geographic location) without regard to their individual personalities and beliefs it immediately makes them a bigot.

That's pretty clearly not what sotonohito is saying, but hell, keep going with your "hating evil is evil" nonsense.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:35 AM on March 14, 2008


languagehat I'm quite happy to be bigoted against, say Klansmen, and I've got no problem at all in stating that I'm bigoted against those who want to mess over homosexuals. I must be some horrible anti-progressive person, right?.

As for southerners, I *AM* a southerner, as are pretty much all of my RL friends. I'm not bigoted against southerners, I'm simply not in denial about the fact that a depressingly large number of us (the majority, in fact) are perfectly willing to embrace an evil agenda.

Same goes for Christians. There are non-evil Christians out there. But, again, it seems silly to deny that Christians are the prime movers behind the campaign to deny homosexuals equal citizenship; at least here in the USA. I'm sure there are homobigoted atheists, Buddhists, etc. But they aren't the ones leading the charge against homosexuals in the USA. Look at any anti-gay movement and you'll find Christians make up nearly 100% of its members, and all of its leadership.

Look at the center of the movement against homosexuals and you will find Christian southerners, its just that simple. Yes, the movement isn't limited to those groups, but they make up its core. Why do you think its bigoted to admit that reality?

The only places where sanity has won out have been well out of the "South": New Jersey, Massachusetts, etc. This is not a coincidence.
posted by sotonohito at 11:44 AM on March 14, 2008 [1 favorite]


That's pretty clearly not what sotonohito is saying

Yes, it pretty clearly is. Here, read his actual words: "They're hate filled loons [i.e., "shitkicking hillbillies"], there's a large number of them, and unless the non-idiot states impose sanity from the outside (as they did with the racist states back in the 1960's) it will never end. Whether you want to admit it or not, a certain area of the USA, the so-called 'south', is a backwards land of idiot Christofascist thuggery..." He's explicitly attacking not a mindset but an entire area of the country.

I'm quite happy to be bigoted against, say Klansmen, and I've got no problem at all in stating that I'm bigoted against those who want to mess over homosexuals. I must be some horrible anti-progressive person, right?


Do you have a problem with reading comprehension? I've said several times I have nothing against attacking homophobes, and my comment history shows I do it myself. Don't try to paint me as some kind of closet gaybasher.

As for southerners, I *AM* a southerner


Yeah, a self-hating southerner. There are self-hating Jews, self-hating gays, you name it. It's not a new phenomenon.

If you want to attack homophobes, attack homophobes, wherever they may be found. When you take the lazy, bigoted way out and attack "the South" because you're pissed off that there are a bunch of homophobes there, you 1) give aid and comfort to homophobes elsewhere ("hey, I'm not a shitkicking hillbilly, so I'm OK!") and 2) piss off the southerners who are trying their best to fight homophobia and other things that are seriously wrong in this country. But never mind that, you know you're right 'cause the hate feels so damn good.
posted by languagehat at 12:37 PM on March 14, 2008 [2 favorites]


The only places where sanity has won out have been well out of the "South": New Jersey, Massachusetts, etc. This is not a coincidence.

That's an interesting logic trick there. Gay marriage has been approved outside of the southeast, therefore the southeast is homophobia. Let's ignore the other regions that also haven't made progress on gay rights and focus on the one you've pre-selected as the worst. Here, have a map [PDF]. Have several. Take a look at the geographic patterns before you assert that there's one distinct region where this is a worse problem than elsewhere. There really isn't. True, the northeast and west coast have made some important steps forward. But the lag is not limited to one region. Not by a long shot.
posted by Tehanu at 1:07 PM on March 14, 2008


Not to derail what's becoming a fantastically interesting he-said-she-said, but I totally read sotonohito's opener as "I'm quite happy to be bigoted against gay Klansmen," and the ravishing absurdity of the statement made me laugh.

dw: Random White Barely Bilingual Ontario Quebec Party Apparatchnik Who Is Currently Liberal Party Head (FTFY)
posted by sixswitch at 4:16 PM on March 14, 2008


When one looks at maps of the USA, charting things like homophobia, religiousity, education, even "coke versus pop versus soda", the Mason-Dixie line always stands out.

It is absurd to deny that there is a distinctly different — and, frankly, bass-ackwards — culture down there. It is choc-a-bloc full of racists, batshitinsane fundamentalists, sexists, and other low-life forms of bigots. Bloody well packed with 'em.

And then there's Florida...
posted by five fresh fish at 5:04 PM on March 14, 2008 [1 favorite]


Well, FFF, while I'll agree to a point, there's also some decent folks down here. The outright crazy or evil ones do seem to be the majority, but only by 10 to 15 points or so.
posted by sotonohito at 6:34 PM on March 14, 2008


Didn't say nothing about individual folks. There is a different culture down there, and much of it is due to jackasses like Kern who, if not in the majority, sure have a helluva grip on the politics and religions, and hence the culture.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:52 PM on March 14, 2008


It is absurd to deny that there is a distinctly different — and, frankly, bass-ackwards — culture down there.

May I remind you that it was in NYC that a black man was shot 20+ times while reaching for his wallet, that it was in LAX that Joe Morgan got the snot beaten out of him by a couple of cops because he "fit the description" (and then saw cop after goddamn cop get up to testify sheer fucking lies to back those who Morgan sued), that Chicago had its school desegregation crisis years after Little Rock (not to mention the charming story about the election of its first black mayor, and how those enlightened Northern liberal white Democrats responded). Down here, we call 'em rednecks. Up there, y'all call 'em officer.

Sure, it's more in the open down south. Sure, there are times that you want to punch at random. But I get a good laugh from the idea that dishonest, sweep-it-under-the-rug bigotry is somehow better than bigots who at least have the courage of their convictions to open their mouths and speak clearly. Hell, even Malcolm X said he preferred the South, because, as he said, when you meet a racist down here, you know it. Waiting until you're in safe company to speak your mind doesn't make you more morally enlightened, it makes you a goddamn coward in addition to being a bigot.

Speaking of someone who's spent more of his life north of the M-D line than south of it, the only substantial difference between you and me is that I don't have to sift through crypto-racist encoded bullshit to know exactly where my community stands. It's out front, and I can pick up my bludgeon and start swinging right away.
posted by middleclasstool at 9:49 PM on March 14, 2008 [5 favorites]


s/b "Speaking as someone..."
posted by middleclasstool at 9:51 PM on March 14, 2008


♪ “Throw the hillbilly down the well
So my country can be free…” ♫
posted by XMLicious at 10:09 PM on March 14, 2008


Waiting until you're in safe company to speak your mind doesn't make you more morally enlightened, it makes you a goddamn coward in addition to being a bigot.

"You know, the very fact that I'm talking to you like this here today, puts me in jeopardy."
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:22 PM on March 14, 2008


I get a good laugh from the idea that dishonest, sweep-it-under-the-rug bigotry is somehow better than bigots who at least have the courage of their convictions to open their mouths and speak clearly.

Then we shall have to agree to disagree, middleclassstool. I feel that the north's bigotry indicates a public understanding that bigotry is wrong and to be denied, with the hope that the next generation will be even less bigoted; while the south's open bigotry indicates acceptance of racism and denies the future a future where there's no hope for equality.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:42 PM on March 14, 2008


FFF I hear what you're saying but I personally have to regard the anti-hillbilly kind of bigotry as more insidious in some ways for the exact opposite reason - it accepts that it's okay to be bigoted by unblinkingly construing that the object of bigotry is “wrong” and you're “right.”

For an example, check out this AskMe thread. I bet that at least some of the people in it who got all moralistic and enthusiastically, contemptuously judgmental about smoking cigarettes would refuse to even recognize that they're moralizing and would react with outrage at another who said the exact same things about promiscuous sex.

I find it frightening and dangerous that I seem to run into a fair number of people who seem to almost literally think “Well I don't do that, I'm not biased or bigoted or discriminatory” to the point that they're really actually blinded to their own bias and discrimination. And besides that the prevalence of those sorts of double-standard attitudes are why many people on the moderate end of conservatism still react negatively to many progressive causes.
posted by XMLicious at 11:15 PM on March 14, 2008 [2 favorites]


XMLicious I am biased, I am discriminatory. The difference is that I'm biased and discriminatory towards things that are genuinely wrong.

Take your examples. Smoking is not only objectively harmful to the person doing it [1] but (and this is the important part) stinks up his surroundings and causes minor harm to those around the smoker. I can understand why a person would chose not to be involved with a smoker, and I can understand why people would want to outlaw smoking in public buildings. Banning smoking altogether I oppose.

But your counterpoint is purely nonsensical. Promiscuous sex is not objectively harmful, does not inconvenience or harm bystanders, etc. Mind, I'm spaking of promiscuous sex in general, in a theoretically monogamous relationship its a different matter.

I am not a moral relativist. There is a such a thing as right and wrong, it is absolute, and I am biased against those who do objective wrong.

[1] Which is not to say I want it outlawed, if a person chooses to harm themselves its their concern. I can't say I *like* it, but neither will I say its appropriate to use the force of law to make them stop hurting themselves.
posted by sotonohito at 6:03 AM on March 15, 2008


What he said.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:57 AM on March 15, 2008


And then there's Florida...

What about Florida? You mean the state where Simmie Williams was murdered? Florida is not necessarily an outlier. Which goes to my bigger point-- of course the Mason-Dixon lines stands out when we're charting all kinds of bigotry but to focus singularly on certain parts of the country as though they have a monopoly on racism, homophobia, etc., etc., is to not only remain ignorant of certain actual facts, it's to downplay the work that needs to be done everywhere.

I live in a blue state in the Northeast which has major urban centers with arts, culture, great restaurants, all kinds of hip, avant garde shit. Nevertheless, last year a young black man was attacked and his family threatened in his hometown. Last year we had various incidents of nooses being found in places around the state and LGBT students I work with face discrimination in school every single day. Sure, we probably don't have reps who would say such maliciously hateful stuff in semi-public, but that doesn't mean we don't have discrimination and oppression. We do have reps who consistently reject marriage equality by voting against it in the state legislature as well as reps who say hurtful, ignorant things when we lobby them to vote in favor of expanding our state's non-discrimination law to protect transgender people.

So, yeah, let's not get overly focused on this whole southern thing. To some extent it's a red herring that prevents those of us in "blue" states from doing the work that needs to be done in our own communities.
posted by sneakin at 9:17 AM on March 15, 2008 [1 favorite]


Actually, I meant "then there's Florida" in the "Fark has a special tag for it" sort of way. It is a state that does seem to have an unusually high amount of looniness in it.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:03 AM on March 15, 2008


sneakin No argument at all that an obsessive focus on "the South" can blind people to the problems in the rest of the nation.

OTOH, I still think my essential argument stands: it is "the South" that is the stronghold of the anti-gay movement. The only way to beat the enemy is to crush that stronghold, and that requires federal laws.

In many ways the move for homosexual equality does mirror the move for black equality. "The South" is where the opposition is strongest, and by defeating the enemy there we will set the path for winning overall. Federal laws guaranteeing equality for homosexuals will not only bring victory at the heart of the enemy's strength, they also defeat the enemy in the areas where they are less strong. A federal marriage equality law would not only give homosexuals in Atlanta have equal rights, thus smacking the enemy where he thinks he is secure, but also crush the enemy elsewhere, like Oregon or Maine.

Obviously our own strength dictates our tactics. When we are weak we have little choice but to go for the low hanging fruit, so we push for state laws in Massachusetts and other similarly civilized states. The next logical step is to get a case in the Supreme Court based on Article IV Section 1 of the US Constitution to force some backwards state to recognize a same sex marriage performed in an civilized state. That'll knock the wind out of the enemy, and prove that all the state constitutional amendments they pass are just so much wastepaper. Then, maybe, we can muster the strength to force through a federal law.

Musashi described this as "holding down the pillow", its the tactic of attacking the enemy wherever and however you can, never letting them have a chance to rest and regroup. It is, as he says, mostly a defensive tactic, something done out of weakness rather than strength. But it will put those of us on the side of right into a position to finally crush the enemy's stronghold.

Just as with black equality, it will take time after the federal laws are passed to see real improvement in "the South", but that bold attack will utterly defeat and demoralize the enemy elsewhere.
posted by sotonohito at 10:27 AM on March 15, 2008 [1 favorite]


OTOH, I still think my essential argument stands: it is "the South" that is the stronghold of the anti-gay movement.

Oklahoma City is not in the South. Neither is Colorado Springs, from whence come both Jim Dobson and Ted Haggard. Neither is Laramie, where Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered.

The South is not the stronghold of the anti-gay movement. In fact, I would argue there is no stronghold. Well, unless you count everything between the ranges on the west coast and the Adirondacks and the Delaware River. In other words, 80% of the territory and about 70% of the people.

Believe what you will, but trust me, there will be gay marriage in Georgia before it's in Nebraska.
posted by dw at 9:43 PM on March 15, 2008


Map of Same-Sex Marriage Law in the USA.

There's a half-assed wikipedia map of Europe; red and orange are banned/unknown; yellow (under political consideration), green, blue and purple (legally recognized) are progressively better.

The wikipedia article indicates there's also been huge movement in Asia towards legal recognition of gay marriage.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:18 PM on March 15, 2008


I suppose one should mention seeing in passing that Kern's kid is now claiming to be celibate and not gay. I've been assuming there is a technical correctness to that claim. Perhaps he is heterosexual, although I'm not seeing how that jives with some of the claims made about his past behaviours.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:21 PM on March 15, 2008


Actually, I meant "then there's Florida" in the "Fark has a special tag for it" sort of way. It is a state that does seem to have an unusually high amount of looniness in it.

Got it. My bad.
posted by sneakin at 10:23 PM on March 15, 2008


No, mine; it was an opaque non-sequitor.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:00 AM on March 16, 2008


Oklahoma conservatives 'stand with' Kern
"While her comments have garnered widespread condemnation, back home in Oklahoma, Kern has received support from her fellow Republicans:
'I would submit to you that the vast majority of the folks in our caucus, particularly those who consider themselves conservative, stand with and support Sally,' said state Rep. Randy Terrill."
posted by ericb at 12:26 PM on March 16, 2008


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