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Boil a frog slowly and it fails to appreciate its own peril.
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Comment RSS Sally Kern: Homosexuality should be 'exposed and attacked'
Kern, an otherwise obscure state senator from Oklahoma, has a penchant for attacking the sexuality of others. Each time she does so, she confirms that her erudition is confined to scripture or the talking points of others. She has turned selective observation into an art form. Last week, Peter LaBarbera had a little "press conference" tediously proclaiming President Obama to be the Antichrist (or something along those lines). Nobody would know of the existence of this little event were it not for LaBarbera himself. Apparently, Ms Kern delivered a speech. To whom it was delivered remains uncertain.
There are two conflicting worldviews vying for power. The secular humanist worldview versus the Judeo-Christian or Biblical worldview.
The problem with that "logic" is that it is simplistic. It is, what Carl Sagan described as "excluded middle;" considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities. I would also like to know where Islamic extremists fit within the humanist v. fundamentalist construct.
Our founding fathers established this nation upon the Biblical worldview as evidenced by John Adam’s [sic] statement, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.”
The quote from John Adams is abbreviated and out of context but accurate insofar as Adams addressing the troops in 1798. John Adams also wrote "How has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
Or James Madison’s statement: “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government … but upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the 10 Commandments of God.”
Madison also wrote "During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." While I am at it, Thomas Jefferson once told Adams: "I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded upon fables and mythologies."
For the first time in America’s history, we have a president who has no understanding of the Biblical worldview and who has even less understanding of the truths of the Bible. This is evident when he says that support for homosexual “marriage” [unions] can be found in the Sermon on the Mount
Translation: Obama's views on Christianity differ from mine but mine is the only correct point of view. Perhaps Kern is also unaware of that pesky clause of the Constitution that prohibits religious tests for any federal office.
Whereas George Washington expelled from his military those who practiced sodomy, President Obama honors sodomites by proclaiming an entire month as Gay Pride Month, but he won’t acknowledge one day for our National Day of Prayer.
The whole "sodomite" thing isn't deserving of attention except to remind Kern that we are not a theocracy. Ayatollahs are not in charge. Whether or not GW dismissed gay soldiers is unknown except to revisionist historian (actually, former Texas high school math teacher) David Barton. Ironically, we do know that President Obama has fired gays and lesbians from the armed services.
We have a president who doesn’t know the difference between God-given rights and sinful, perverted behavior.
Oklahoma has a state senator who is incapable of separating her religious beliefs from her civic responsibilities. Does an atheist constituent deserve her official attention? How about a hell-bound Jew?
While conservatives attack the symptoms, like homosexuality or abortion, and these behaviors should be exposed and attacked; however, we should love the people involved in these behaviors and tell them God has a better way.
And there you have it. Kern would probably argue that she said that the behavior should be exposed and attacked — not the people. I would argue that the two things are inseparable. Furthermore, when Kern attacks gay people as being "sinful," "perverted" and "sodomites," that serves to confirm a lack of differentiation. Abortion is a medical procedure. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation. Neither are "behaviors."
Critical thinkers arrive at truth by testing hypotheses against proof. Fundamentalists, like Kern, start with a preordained conclusion and then create or selectively observe proof to support what they insist is inarguable. Evidence that conflicts with their conclusions is either deemed invalid for reasons that are not empirical or they are portrayed as the work of Satan — the Swiss army knife of fundamentalist argument. "Behaviors" is the product of such intellectual dishonesty. It is a contrivance to explain the existence of gay people. In Kern-world, gay people don't exist. In Kern's simplistic universe, everyone is straight. Some people simply choose to have same-sex sex much like some people choose to gamble, do drugs or drink. Ultimately, it is Kern who is making a choice to ignore evidence. She has also chosen to ignore the views of religious scholars who do not share her incurious perspective. Yet, Kern is capable of being a cafeteria Christianist. Presumably, she opposes killing children who curse their parents or stoning women who are not virgins when they marry. Of course, it is only my assumption that she opposes those draconian scriptural punishments for what truly are "behaviors."
Do not torture yourself too much with too much deep thinking on this matter. You do not need to be an expert critical thinker to analyze this issue of homosexuality. Common sense is all you need to know that homosexuality is evil, disgusting, extremely wrong, an abomination. And yes! As the Bible rightly says.
Many of the "conclusions" found in the Bible are in fact eternal truths, whether you like it or not!! Not everything is perfect in the Bible, as it is a text that has been manipulated by many before reaching this final stage at which it is now. But it does not mean that it is not useful.
Homosexuality is not new. Even in Biblical times, it was present. What is new is the drive to legitimate this evil behavior and we must fight that at all costs.
It is time to stop being politically correct about many things: about homosexuality, about Islam and Muslim immigration in America, about affirmative actions for particular groups of people, and more.
Let us call evil evil. Homosexuality is evil, an abomination. It is an eternal truth. So what now? We must fight to ask homosexuals to shut up and stop imposing their evil on others. What they do in bed is evil and we want them to know that we do not want to know how low they have reached. More, we do not want our children to hear them calling evil good and right!!!
Is this plain talking too much for you? I hope not. Thank you Sally Kern to have opened the eyes of many!!
I'm writing a song:
"Stuck in a Theocracy, and I Didn't Get To Vote On It."
I really appreciated this article, both for pointing out the hypocrisy of an elected official (I'll bet she wouldn't like HER religious freedom tampered with, yet she conspires and openly declares others should conspire, to do the same to others), and for addressing the egregious misquotation of the Founding Fathers that is so often used as a "weapon" by the hyperreligious right wing extremists in this country. And while it may seem to some that calling people such as Kern an "extremist" is itself extreme, take into account the fact that she wishes to impose a conservative Christian theocracy - nay, essentially demands that we install one! - on the US government. The borderline (hell, at times far past borderline!) militaristic tone of speeches like this show how truly extreme they are.
Sadly, they are ignorant of their own religion's history; the Jews (aka predecessors to Christianity), up until about 1,000 BC, were even on occasion polytheistic from time to time (during King Solomon's time for instance - and for a while after - the mother goddess Ansherah and the god Baal had features dedicated to them in the same Jewish temple that was dedicated to Yahweh). Time magazine actually had an interesting article on this in the past few weeks, that came to a rather startling but compelling conclusion: that when Judeo-Christians (and Muslims, for that matter... or really, anyone) treat life with other cultures as a "zero-sum game" - one in which there is not only an Us and a Them, but supposedly one "winner" and one loser - that's when rhetoric like this (which denies the right of others to have their own separate spiritual path or lifestyle; which is intolerant of any but a strict set of approved behaviors; which grows more and more militaristic and confrontational over time) comes out. But when they instead realize that life with other poeple is NOT a "zero-sum game", but rather a "non zero-sum game", one in which each side's "winning" is tied to the other's own success, in which it is seen as being in their best interests to work together rather than apart... that's when the tolerance and love-thy-neighbor talk comes out. It's no accident that the teachings of Jesus that come down to us now mostly preach tolerance, patience, charity and forgiveness and preach against things like hypocrisy and false faith (Gospel of Matthew, for instance, covers a lot of this particularly in Ch. 7); Christians, like many others, were oppressed and controlled by the Romans, and the one sure way to rid themselves of Roman control was really to work cohesively. This is why the God of the Bible (and the Quran) seems so damn schizophrenic: because the Good Book was written and compiled over the course of several thousand years, covering a vast swath of Judeo-Christian history, including both periods of "zero-sum" warfare and "non-zero sum" peacetime covorting with the pagans. In fact, you can date early stories like the Biblical Flood of Noah to about 6,000 BC, where the inspiration for it is most likely the sudden flooding and salination of the Black Sea after a glacial melting period (very interesting book by Ian Wilson, Before the Flood, covers this and I would highly recommend it to anyone curious about it, or the development of culture and religion in the Neolithic period and beyond). Which means that we're looking at easily 8,000 years, miniumum, of human history in which the Book was created and eventually written, compiled, and edited. Is it really surprising that "God" has such mood swings, given the vast timeframe involved?
Of course, I digressed a little there (sorry, I know I'm a little too wordy sometimes!) but I would hope any given person reading this would get my resulting point: that people like Kern are too damn stupid to realize life is NOT a zero-sum game, that Secular Humanists, and many others, simply want a Better World for Humanity just like they do. So they frame their "debates" in confrontational ways - the author of this article is right to point out the fact that Kern apparently sees no middle ground between what she at least labels "Secular Humanists", and fundamentalist Christians... placing both groups into a somewhat false Us/Them dichtomy that also ignores the "excluded middle". I had never run across that quote by Sagan, but I will definitely try to remember and use it in the future, because it's wonderful and totally appropriate in so very many debates... the ones on both gay marriage and abortion are both examples of cases where there is actually a large "excluded middle" of people with moderate or non-extremist views, who get ignored, often sadly by both extreme sides of the argument (though this is more of a problem with abortion debates than gay marriage as the idea of simply having civil marriage be gender-neutral is actually not a very ideologically "extreme" position, even if it is seen as as extreme in current, Western societal terms).
In any case, the best way to beat Kern and people like her's "zero-sum" approach to life and religion, is to fight it, not with fire (as the so-called, sometimes self-described "militant" atheists do), but rather with water: try to emphasize to all the impressionable "excluded middles" and moderates the necessity of treating life and the law as a non-zero sum situation, given the complexity of the modern world. Fighting fire with fire just creates, well... more fire.
Great analysis, Jamie.
If Kern weren't such a cowardly hypocrite she would expose and attack David Boren, Oklahoma's most famous closet homosexual. That sounds like an oxymoron, but many people know it but pretend not to know it, because of fear of this tyrannical buffoon. I bring it out -- not because I am on a crusade against homosexuals -- but because Boren has made a life-long practice out of sexually harassing his male staff members. He has also wasted millions of dollars in public funds putting unqualified young jerks on public payrolls because he admires the bulges in their pants. In 1993, Boren was being outed in the gay press and accused of sexual harassment. In October of that year Van Horn announced his resignation from the OU presidency and Boren started campaigning for the job. He's been cavorting like a jackass at OU ever since the fools on the board of regents hired him.
Cowardly "liberals" in Oklahoma are no better than Kern. They quivver in fear that someone might holler "homophobe" if they ever say anything negative about "boss" Boren in relation to his queerness.
Click on my link for a video tour of some of the gay articles.
Maybe she should be gotten out of office instead of ignored. Reza Aslan's "How To Win A Cosmic War" says that radicals have to have a counterpoint or they don't see themselves as 'fighting against something.' All moderates should declare a war (ironically) against intolerants because they fuel unease, unrest and harm. Having someone like this making decisions is worse than having an empty chair. But people deserve more than an empty chair. They should have a leader who makes the world better and respects the very Constitution and Bill of Rights upon which Oklahoma's legitimacy as a state is based. If she won't 'play by the rules' of civic society, then oust her. What would that take? Impeachment proceedings or a petition drive. The latter would lend a better result.
Okay Sally, I think I have the hang of it.
Your James Madison’s quote ends with: "...to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the 10 Commandments of God.”
Wasn't there a commandment somewhere about not bearing false witness against a neighbor?
I agree with David. She's another cafeteria christian.
Oh that Sally "KKK" Kern, she so crazy!
Why is this worth reporting. Kern is one of the many christial taliban. The US is full of them. They don't merit out attention.
Oh, yes they do! They do indeed merit our attention! We've seen what the Taliban are capable of, once in power. Kern is a state senator. She weilds influence over other politicians and decision-makers.
We need to fight them by publically and vocally calling them out for their lies and efforts to curb other citizens' civil rights.
We need to get them out of office!
Oh, they definitely deserve our attention.
I was responding to the David Barton talking points as much as Kern. If you do a Google search on that Adams quote, you will see that the same argument is used on many Fundamentalist web sites with the same ridiculous conclusion. There is a general absence of counterpoint.
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