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)
