Oklahoma Lawmaker Goes on Antigay Tirade

The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a national organization that works to elect openly LGBT people, has posted a video on YouTube revealing an antigay rant made by Oklahoma representative Sally Kern. Representing the state’s 84th district, Kern criticized gay people for indoctrinating children, lamented the growing number of gay politicians, and said gays will “destroy this nation.” The gay community, she says, poses a “bigger threat, even more so than terrorists or Islam,” to the United States. The video, called "I'm Listening," was posted on March 7 and has been viewed more than 295,000 times.

Kern's speech was delivered to about 50 people at an Oklahoma county Republican club and recorded by someone who is a friend of the gay community but is not LGBT themselves, according to Victory Fund president and CEO Chuck Wolfe. Though the speech's exact date is unknown, Wolfe said the recording had taken place within the last three weeks. In it, Kern also said the gay lifestyle has deadly consequences, claiming that gays have higher suicide rates, feel more discouraged, are more frequently ill, and have shorter life spans.

“As a matter of fact, studies show that no society that has embraced homosexuality has lasted more than a few decades,” she said. “It’s the death knell of this country.”

Furthermore, Kern accused gays of influencing school curricula to brainwash children into accepting their lifestyle. “You know why they’re trying to get early childhood education?” she said. "They want to get our young children into government schools so they can indoctrinate them. They’re going after our young children, as young as 2 in age, to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is acceptable.”

Kern also implied that gays should be stopped before they cause more damage.

“One of my colleagues said, ‘We don’t have a gay problem in my community, and that’s why I voted against this bill,’” Kern said, though which bill she was referring to isn’t clear. “To me, that is so dumb. If you’ve got cancer in your little toe, do you say, ‘Well, you know, I’m going to forget about it because the rest of me is fine?’ It spreads, and this stuff is deadly. It’s spreading, and it will destroy our young people.”

Wolfe noted that reasonable people who listen to the recording aren't going to believe "there's a lot of logic" to what Kern is saying, but he worried about the effect of having such a person serve as an elected official. "The biggest fear is that having someone sitting inside a governmental body and spewing that kind of hate is obviously taking the focus away from representing the citizens of your district," said Wolfe, adding, "All elected officials represent LGBT Americans within their districts, and to use that kind of language about your own constituents is outrageously scary." (Ryan Wenzel with Kerry Eleveld, The Advocate)