The Sally Kern Incident

As I had this awful stomach flu that’s been going around, I wasn’t able to check out the YouTube clips that many bloggers have shared over the past few days. It is just as well. I was already nauseous.

The above clip of Oklahoma representative Sally Kern speaking about homosexuality is disturbing for a number of reasons, and I will try to point them out in a calm, level-headed fashion.

Perhaps the most important point is that she is wrong. She says that no civilization that has embraced homosexuals has lasted more than a few decades. Apparently she has never heard of the Greek civilization, which not only lasted “more than a few decades”, but profoundly influenced most of the major, powerful and successful civilizations that existed from then on, including our own. One doesn’t have to know much about Greek history or literature to know that this civilization was in essence bisexual.

Second, I have yet to meet a homosexual who has tried to convert me to it. Perhaps her claim is an instance of fundamentalists projecting their own proselytizing tendencies onto others.

Third, the Bible has far more to say about injustice and its corrosive effects on society than about homosexuality, and speaks far more clearly about the former issue, but you’ll never hear that from these fundamentalists. They talk about what ‘God’s word says’ when it will get them votes or support their own views. Anyone who believes them when they claim they ‘take the Bible literally‘ needs to get a new baloney-detection kit.

Finally, she seems not to realize that speech of this sort fosters a context in which violent actions can then be overlooked. Very few Muslims are involved in terrorism, but as long as not insignificant numbers of imams talk about the destruction of America, and chatrooms continue to be filled with hate-speech, the few that would actually act have a strong culture of support, which will turn a blind eye when they engage in terrorist acts. So, in short, if anyone should be accused of supporting terrorism, it is Kern. Views like hers have “deadly consequences“.

I wish to put append to this entry a mention of the fact that I’m a Baptist, and share a link to a post by a representative of the Mainstream Baptists in Oklahoma on this subject. Not all of us think as Kern does.