Oklahoma

According to The Greely Gazette, when local pastor Paul Blair spoke out in opposition to an Oklahoma City proposal to add sexual orientation to the city’s anti-discrimination policy, he and his church received death and bomb threats.  But Blair refuses to be intimidated by such threats and has decided, instead, to take a stand by running for state office: 

Paul Blair, Pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma told the council that the law was unnecessary and would create an unfair burden on employers and could allow men to use women’s restrooms and locker rooms.

Following his remarks, Blair and the church have been threatened with violence.

...

Blair said it was amazing that the threats against his church and himself have been largely ignored by the national media.

“If I would have left these types of threats on the voicemail of the local ‘gay’ alliance, I would have been in jail before sundown. It would have been on the front page of the New York Times and the lead story on CNN.”

The threats have motivated Blair to further action. “On Sunday, I announced to members of the church I was going to be running for the Oklahoma State Senate. I received a standing ovation.”

This might all be more believable if Blair was not already a rabidly anti-gay Religious Right activist  - that is him, second from the right, with Tony Perkins and Janet Porter at the Dominionist-infused May Day for America prayer rally in 2010:

Blair is also a close ally of Rep. Sally Kern and spoke at the "Rally for Sally" to show support for her after she said gays represent a bigger threat to America than terrorism. 

He is also the head of the reborn Reclaiming America For Christ organization and was a participant in the self-aggrandizing anti-hate crimes "Rally for Religious Freedom" where various anti-gay activists vowed never to stop preaching against homosexuality and challenged the Justice Department to prosecute them.

In fact, Blair and his organization produced this ten minute video called "The Criminalization of Christianity" which warned that hate crimes legislation - which Blair called the "Pedophile Protection Act" - would "make it possible for a pastor to be prosecuted for doing nothing more than preaching a Biblical sermon on Sunday":

So Blair is not just some local pastor mobilized to run for office because of supposed threats from gay activists; he's a full-blown anti-gay Religious Right activist who is now seeking to turn his radical agenda into state law.

It took me just about two hours to make it through "The Stoning of Sally Kern: The Liberal Attack on Christian Conservatism - And Why We Must Take a Stand" which pretty much tells you all you need to know about this vapid amalgamation of right-wing cliches that Kern cobbled together and tried to pass off as a book.

Kern's book reads like a greatest hits collection of right-wing talking points as she fear-mongers about everything from Kevin Jennings to ENDA to the Department of Homeland Security while mixing in references to the works of David Barton, David Horowitz and even full-blown Christian Reconstructionists like Gary DeMar.

[As it turns out, Kern more or less has Barton to thank for turning her into a national pariah as it was at one of his Wallbuilders ProFamily Legislators Conference that she first learned about the insidious homosexual agenda that was a bigger threat to this nation than terrorism and decided to begin speaking out against it.]

In the book, Kern claims that her original statement was poorly worded and then taken out of context and misrepresented ... and she then proceeds to clarify by saying the very same thing:

One of the snippets from my now infamous speech that has been replayed endlessly by my critics on the Left is the sentence in which I say that the homosexual lifestyle and its agenda are "a greater threat than terrorism." If I hadn't been in such a hurry to hit all my points, I would have elaborated on that thought in a way that wouldn't have left me so open to outrage and demagoguery ...

Terrorists seem to do damage to our nation and to its people. Yet we, the American people, are bringing the wholesale destruction of our nation upon ourselves as we wholeheartedly embrace homosexuality, a lifestyle proven to be dangerous and deadly. We are currently very vigilant against the terrorist threat against us. We seem oblivious to this more pervasive inner decay.

My hope and prayer is that this book and the hate-storm I've been through will in some way help to change that dangerous complacency.

I haven't felt this cheated by a Religious Right author since Matt Barber conned me out of $30 by surreptitiously stitching together a bunch his columns and then selling it as a book.

As I noted yesterday, I have started reading "The Stoning of Sally Kern" and will probably have another "Random Book Blogging" post up about it later today. 

I have made it halfway through and two things stand out: one being how Kern frames everything that has happened in her life as part of God's plan for her, so much so that she claims she never even wanted to run for public office, but did so only because God wanted her to so that she could be used "ultimately for His glory."

The second thing that stands out is how utterly clueless Kern is over why people were so outraged over her statement that the "homosexual agenda is destroying this nation ... it's the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam" and that gay/straight alliances are like a cancer which is destroying America.  She literally cannot understand how people could get so angry at her for simply telling the truth ... and, judging by this interview with the Tulsa Beacon, it seems that Kern is content to remain a lightening rod as she says gay marriage will lead to bestiality and pedophilia and that nobody is born gay because God would never make a mistake like that:

“The average American doesn’t understand the threat that homosexuality and the total acceptance of it into our society is to our nation,” Kern said. “We need to wake up to this threat.

“I am always being accused of hating homosexuals. I don’t hate anyone. This isn’t a matter of hating someone or trying to deny them their equal rights. All American citizens have equal rights under our Constitution. This is trying to get acceptance for a behavior that is specifically mentioned in God’s Word that is wrong.”

If the homosexuals get special status for same-sex marriage, what would stop them from seeking approval for group marriage or marriage to animals or children, Kern said.

“It just opens Pandora’s Box,” Kern said.

The book looks at the AIDS epidemic and points out that infection is much higher among homosexual men than any other group – even illegal drug addicts.

“I took a lot of heat when this all started because I said this is a lifestyle they choose,” said Kern.

"And when I say choose, they don’t choose it in the sense of like going through a cafeteria line and looking at all the different types of lifestyles and saying, I’ll take that one because it looks exciting.

“No. Everybody knows it is not exciting. It has many harmful effects. They choose it in the sense that they succumb to the temptation to give into it. They are not born that way. God would not call something an abomination and make someone where they had no choice. They have the opportunity, they have the power to say no to that lifestyle.”

“None of us gets to choose the temptations we deal with. We are all tempted. We are all sinners. We can all say no to destructive temptations.”

Not only is there a battle against the homosexual movement but the so-called mainstream media is generally a partner against defense of biblical and traditional values ... "The media, Hollywood – all of them are in bed, trying to promote this ungodly, humanistic philosophy,” Kern said. “It’s really sad because if you are a Christian and you believe God’s Word, you have to believe in the sovereignty of God. You have to believe in the goodness of God. God makes no mistakes.

Yesterday, Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern made news when she "we have a high percentage of blacks in prison" because they don't want to work hard and "didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them."

Naturally, that comment generated a lot of outrage and so last night Kern released a statement assuring everyone that she is in no way racist because "my husband and I serve in an inner city church ministering to people of every race because we love all people" ... but mostly just accusing the press of misrepresenting his views by taking her statements out of context:

I want to humbly apologize for any statements last night about women and African Americans. My words were, obviously, not spoken correctly and for that I humbly apologize. Unfortunately, when we take "words or sentences" out of the total context of a speech debated on the floor, there can be false misrepresentations, but the most important part is to always go to the heart of the matter.

...

We live in a sound bite society and our media likes to take only a portion of a dialog and use just a slice of it. You can take a portion of something someone says and make it say anything you want it to say. Without a doubt, what I said was poorly stated and did not convey the meaning I wanted to get across for this I am truly sorry and humbly apologize.