Kern, Coulter on Conversion Therapy

Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern -- who once called gay people a greater threat to America than terrorism -- says what's truly hateful is telling gays they can't change their sexual orientation.

Appearing this week on American Family Radio, a program of the antigay American Family Association, Kern (pictured, right) told host Tim Wildmon, "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. There's no hope in that." Wildmon had claimed that "nobody hates the individual homosexual," but the religious right wants "to see them come to repentance and know the Lord and have their lives changed."

Kern closed the program by saying that "the homosexual movement is the tip of the spear" in "trying to tear down the moral fiber of America."

Also this week, another vocal conservative, pundit Ann Coulter (left), shared her opinion on whether one can "pray the gay away." On The Joy Behar Show, Coulter told Behar that so-called reparative therapy likely works for people who "weren't really gay to begin with -- maybe they were molested as children." She expressed incredulity that "liberals who think every sort of polymorphous perversity is normal ... can't imagine that you could go from being gay to straight." When Behar challenged her and brought up the idea of "praying the straight away," Coulter said, "That would be weird."

Coulter also said she'd like to see "don't ask, don't tell" reinstated as military policy, adding, "I want 'don't ask, don't tell' for all of society -- just give me a week where we're not talking about the gays." The only advantage of the recent enactment of New York State's marriage equality law, she said, is that now "maybe they will shut up about it."

Watch the video below, and listen to Kern via People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch blog.