Twenty antigay Oklahoma politicians including state Rep. Sally Kern — who recently enjoyed the enthusiastic public support of Oklahoma-based Exodus ex-gay activist Stephen Black — voted to suppress the public record of the opening prayer for the Oklahoma House of Representatives. (Sixty-seven voted in favor of recording it.)

Here is the entirety of the prayer that they hated: (Read More)

Oklahoma Baptist Pastor Steve Kern, husband of notorious Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern, reportedly believes gay Americans should be incarcerated and forcibly “cured.”

“We have to get rid of that and start curing those sinners. It’s past time that this nation stopped placating sin and start putting them in education programs. Courts can force drug offenders into treatment centers and violent people into anger management. There’s no reason our courts can’t do that with homos.”

While he builds support among ex-gay activists for arrest and involuntary quack medical treatments, Kern in the meantime is said by the Gossip Boy blog to be teaming up with Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett to rid the city’s public libraries of accurate health, scientific, and therapeutic information about sexual orientation. According to James Miko and Wayne Fuller, the pair plan a campaign to “rid the library system of all gay and lesbian materials, as well as those their church-based philosophies find objectionable.”

Their goals:

• Win the 2010 governor’s race and gain power at any cost
• Deprive Oklahoma families of any information that might help them accurately and constructively understand gay family members
• Censor information that exposes the persistent failure of ex-gay programs to “change” their participants’ sexual orientation
• Use government power and taxpayer money to enrich corrupt ex-gay quacks from Exodus International and NARTH, the religious-rightist reparative-therapy lobby.

(Read More)

By Wayne Besen

(Jim Adkisson, Conservative Frankenstein, Left)

This week, I attended the Commercial Closet’s Images In Advertising Awards in Manhattan, which honored corporations that produced gay affirming ads. The pro-gay plugs showed genuine progress and highlighted that many leading companies “get it.” The work of Commercial Closet is vital because images matter and repeated exposure to messages shape our views and create positive change in society. The cleverness and creativity in these ads imparts to millions of people that homosexuality is nothing to be feared and that GLBT people are part of the human family.

The awards ceremony was a welcome respite from reality, where there is no shortage of reminders that the world is still a very dangerous place. In Knoxville, Tennessee, a homophobic loser burst into a Unitarian Church where a children’s play was being performed and unleashed a fusillade of gunfire, killing two people and injuring six. According to police, Jim D. Adkisson, “had targeted the church because of its liberal leanings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country.”

The New York Times reports that the killer was raised in strict a Christian home and was openly anti-gay. He may have targeted this particular church because his former wife – who he had threatened to shoot and then commit suicide – had occasionally attended. He may also have been agitated by the church’s affirming stand on GLBT equality.

The far right’s dirty little secret is that they depend on the threat of violence to retard the advancement of the GLBT movement. Without the fear of physical attack, the number of people who are out of the closet would quickly multiply. Gay couples would hold hands in every city in the nation. On each block, from San Francisco to San Antonio, gay and lesbian people would be visibly present. (Read More)

Become ex-gay — or else: Sydney, Australia, Anglican Rev. Richard Lane once wrote to High Court Justice Michael Kirby, urging him to join an “ex-gay” ministry or face the wrath of God. Lane’s letters were publicized at a Sydney forum on religious tolerance and homosexuality. In response, Kirby accused the churchman of using intemperate language, ignoring modern discoveries about sexual orientation and missing the “central loving message of Jesus and the Gospels.” Kirby stated, “There is not a single word of Jesus that sustains the thesis of animosity in your letter.”

Kern’s double-talk: Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) released recordings of its 40-minute meeting with Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern, refuting Kern’s subsequent claims that she did not object to antigay discrimination and that she did not agree to meet again with the families of gay Oklahomans.

Exodus support for Kern? Video is now available of Exodus member activist Stephen Black giving his support to Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern and falsely claiming that most gay people are abused or badly parented. Exodus’ national office declined to affirm or condemn Black’s statements.

Door open to future antigay violence: Massachusetts antigay group MassResistance, which has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has declined to condemn violent threats made against Lexington, Mass., School Superintendent Paul Ash. Antigay parent David Parker, whose campaign against tolerance in Lexington schools has been trumpeted by Exodus, conditions his own opposition to the threats by simply saying that violence is not justified “at this time.”

Reclaiming Judaism: A new Hebrew-language website has been launched in Israel to counter ex-gay propaganda published by Atzat-Nefesh. (XGW)

Shock ‘em straight? Maybe not: Officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have accepted an invitation to meet with Affirmation, a support group for gay and lesbian Mormons. Affirmation wishes to discuss the church’s historical support for ex-gay therapies including electric shock aversion therapy, which prompted some Mormons to commit suicide. (BTB)

Humbled Infidel has the complete speech by ex-gay activist Stephen Black at a pro-bigotry rally held April 2 on behalf of Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern.

Black is the executive director of First Stone Ministries, an Oklahoma-based Exodus member “ministry.”

A point-by-point analysis of Black’s speech finds appeals to conformity, false and unsourced statistics, and sweeping dehumanization of sexual strugglers. Instead of healing strugglers and reuniting families, Black’s rhetoric divides families and alienates Americans whom he has falsely maligned.

(Read More)

Oklahoma state legislator Sally Kern claims that the Oklahoma City chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) misquoted her positions on discrimination, sin, and civility after a meeting between her and PFLAG representatives.

But PFLAG’s fact-checking reveals that it is Kern who has misrepresented PFLAG’s carefully worded account of their meeting. Kern’s latest volley of strawman arguments and uncivil vitriol against the families of gay people suggests, at the very least, that she has ensnarled herself in her own tangled web of hate speech against parents and Christian clergy.

After all, why should Kern bother to calmly discuss what she or PFLAG actually said, when it’s so much easier to rant breathlessly about what Kern imagines herself, others — or God — to be saying?

Against freedom: An antigay Catholic group is upset that many Catholic universities permit freedom of speech and freedom of association among their gay-tolerant students and faculty. Styling itself as “The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property,” the group claims that, out of 211 U.S. Catholic universities and colleges, at least 96 have pro-tolerance clubs on campus. Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society equates tolerance of homosexual persons and their constitutional rights with promotion of homosexual activity, and he insinuates that sexual honesty is incompatible with “students’ moral formation.” Focus on the Family appears sympathetic to both Catholic antigay groups. (Focus)

Freedom from crime a “special right”: In its ongoing war against young victims of violence, the antigay American Family Association of Michigan has targeted state Sen. Valde Garcia, a Republican, for his support of legislation to protect students from bullying. Gary Glenn of AFA/M asserts that protection from bullying amounts to “special rights” if youths’ specific at-risk demographics are acknowledged. But Garcia says he had already threatened to withdraw his sponsorship of the legislation unless a list of protected demographics was removed. However, Garcia then contradicted himself — admitting he would hypothetically support legislation granting explicit anti-crime protections if they were limited to seniors, children and police. According to Sean Kosofsky of The Triangle Foundation, “If it’s not specific, it [anti-bullying legislation] will end up having little impact.” Kosofsky added, “There’s nothing gay about this bill whatsoever. It protects all students.” (Daily Press & Argus)

Gay genetics study: ABC News oversimplifies research into ties between genetics and homosexuality by falsely suggesting up-front that researchers seek a single gene that might explain sexual orientation. That’s not the case. According to the fine print in ABC’s own news story, the hypothesis is more complex:

Dr. Alan Sanders, a psychiatric geneticist at Northwestern Healthcare Research Institute, is currently heading the biggest study ever undertaken on sexual orientation. He’s looking at the genetic makeup of more than 700 sets of gay brothers.

“I think the evidence is pretty convincing already that a substantial contribution to sexual orientation comes from genetics,” he said. “It’s probably the single biggest factor that we know about.”

FRC apologizes: Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council apologizes for suggesting that America export its gay citizens in lieu of granting legal immigration to their foreign partners. (FRC Blog)

Kern meets with PFLAG: Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern still says equality for gay people is a bigger threat to America than terrorists — and further calls her opinion “Biblical.” But she has also met with members of the Oklahoma City chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and stated that she opposes discrimination against gays in the workplace. That should infuriate Concerned Women for America, which defended Kern’s terror talk as something that “reasonable people can debate.” Earlier, Kern debated a gay Christian pastor on KFOR-TV. (Queerty, PageOneQ, Good As You)

Send them to Mexico. Commenting on federal legislation that would allow foreign individuals to join their gay American partners on U.S. soil, Family Research Council activist and PFOX representative Peter Sprigg says the United States should export homosexuals, not import them.

How not to evangelize: Ex-gay activist Stephen Bennett recently spent several days coaching students at Lincoln Christian College in how to alienate gay people of faith through stereotypes. If students reject Bennett’s advice, there may yet be hope that hearts will be touched.

Hear, hear: People are understandably skeptical that Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern might be as divisive, self-righteous, paranoid, unloving, ignorant, or untruthful as her critics claim. Skeptics may listen to her entire recent speech about same-sex-attracted American terrorists, disease-carriers, and evil billionaires. Or read Kern’s entire speech. For all her indignant godtalk, Kern doesn’t quote a single Bible verse — or offer even a token of compassion for gay people, their families or their congregations. An Oklahoman observes that freedom of speech does not entitle Kern to abuse her public office.

Give me liberty or give me…: The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations says state Rep. Sally Kern — whose recent speech consigned gay Americans to early death (from a disease called love?) — has not received death threats in response, despite claims to the contrary by Kern’s supporters.

Ferraro and Wright and Hagee, oh my: Are all the 2008 candidates for U.S. president pandering to divisive elements more than usual? Just curious.

Focus on the Family Action, political branch of the operator of the Love Won Out ex-gay roadshow and sponsor of ex-gay billboard campaigns, tonight defended Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern after she said gay people were the biggest threat to the United States, “even more so than terrorists and Islam.” (Read More)