Anti-Gay Oklahoma Pol Sally Kern Kills Her Own LGBT Youth-Harming Bill
Oklahoma GOP State Rep. Sally Kern's career, studded with anti-gay episodes, draws many colorful descriptions, but here's a label the virulently homophobic politician doesn't want: Someone whose policies increase teen abortions.
Kern recently introduced legislation in Oklahoma that would have blocked school kids from receiving information or counseling about sexuality before their parents were notified. Advocates of LGBT youth slammed the proposed legislation; as a Feb. 4 New Civil Rights Movement article notes, "Some on social media had called it the "LGBT suicide bill" knowing it would lead directly to increased LGBTQ youth and teen suicide."
Kern withdrew the bill, reportedly because she realized it had the potential to force an uptick in the number of teenage girls who resort to abortions. Oklahomans for Equality, in a Feb. 4 post, stated, "We were here at the Oklahoma Capitol to witness Rep Sally Kern pull her dangerous HB 3044 claiming it would have kept pro-life activists from counseling pregnant teenagers."
The group's post added, "Rep Kern was defiant to the end claiming that the only reason to pull the bill was to protect pro-life activists not lgbt teenagers."
Kern sparked headlines and controversy in 2008 when she told the College Republicans Club at the University of Central Oklahoma that societies that had accepted homosexuality "lasted [no] more than a few decades," and declared that America's tolerance of homosexuals constituted a "death knell of our country."
Moreover, Kern claimed that gays and lesbians were "the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism of Islam," and said that "gays are infiltrating city councils.... They are winning elections."
"[Homosexuality] has deadly consequences for those people involved in it," declared Kern, who cited dubious "studies" purporting to show that being gay leads to shorter life spans.
Kern also parroted longstanding -- and long-debunked -- myths about LGBTs, including the idea that gays somehow "recruit" children.
A 2008 Gaywrited article noted the in the course of her address to College Republicans, "Kern accused homosexuals of pushing a 'gay agenda' and trying to 'indoctrinate' children as young as 2 years old through tolerance education and gay-straight alliances, and suggested that homosexuality is the next wave of terrorism."
In the face of widespread criticism, Kern doubled down, reiterating those views. "I will not back down from what I believe the Bible teaches," Kern said. She also claimed not to have been "bashing" anyone with her comments.
Kern later authored a book that traded on the notion that she was a martyr for having made those comments. "The Stoning of Sally Kern: The Liberal Attack on Christian Conservatism - and Why We Must Take a Stand," published in 2011, returned Kern to the spotlight briefly and made her a darling of the anti-gay right. Kern put in an appearance at American Family Radio to plug the book, bantering on the air with another high-profile anti-gay figure, Tim Wildmon, the head of the American Family Association.
The two joked about the Christian tradition of compassion, before Kern offered the notion that to acknowledge homosexuality as an innate and natural characteristic was "hateful" because it suggests that gays cannot be "cured."
"To me what is hateful is when those people who say, 'You're born this way. There's no hope in change. You're stuck in this, deal with it,' that is hate," Kern said. "There's no hope in that."
Kern also hit the front pages when she brought a loaded gun to the Oklahoma state capitol building, where she was turned back and required to stow the weapon in her car.
As a July 23, 2008 Towelroad article reported, "Kern told Eyewitness News 5 that she merely forgot to leave the weapon behind." However, the article went on to add, "It's the second time in two months."
Kern's attempt to block students' access to confidential counseling constitutes one more episode in a long string of what have been seen as legislative attempts to target LGBT youth and adults. Kern's Wikipedia entry notes the following:
"In January 2015, she introduced three bills in the state legislature which would permit businesses to deny goods, services, or other forms of public accommodation to lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people; prohibit the state from interfering if parents put their children through so-called "conversion therapy"; and to fire any state employee who grants (such as authorized by the district court ruling in Bishop v. Oklahoma) a same-sex marriage license." the Wikipedia article cited a 2015 article at Friendly Atheist in support of these claims.