Reader Jennifer in Nebraska reminded us of an audio clip that’s been making the rounds of various homosexual-type websites, and even if you’ve heard it before, it bears another listen:
Stomach-churning, right? Lies, stereotypes, lies and more lies.
The culprit, not identified in the clip, is Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern. (Need I add an “R” to indicate her political affiliation? I didn’t think so.) Following the resulting brouhaha, Kern invokes her right to free speech and claims her comments were taken out of context:
In an exclusive interview with News9.com about the statements made in the leaked speech, Kern refused to apologize for her words or her views on homosexuality. “What I’m saying, I believe in,” she says. “There are indisputable facts that show its a deadly lifestyle… What is wrong with me, as an American, exercising my free speech rights?”In an email to PamsHouseBlend.com, Kern seemed somewhat more concilitary. “I am totally against hate speech,” she writes. “The account given on YouTube took my words out of context and omitted other parts stringing certain words together to make it appear I was engaging in hate speech. I was not and would never do such a thing.”
In the next paragraph, however, Kern returns to the message she served up in the leaked audio recording that has stirred so much controversy. “The homosexual agenda is real, the movement is agressive [sic], and it is a very real threat to the sacred institution of marriage and the traditional family unit.” While claiming gays “have every right to choose that lifestyle,” Kern says “I do not have to agree with it and speaking against it is not hate speech.”
Kern said no one should be suprised by her views on homosexuality, saying in the interview with News9.com that she’s made similar statements in the past. However, Kern did feel whomever was responsible for the speech being recorded and posted should have spoken up. “Shame on the person who didn’t have the courage to come and say, ‘I’m going to tape you and put it out on YouTube.’”
Now, Kern’s speech is ugly, ugly bigotry, no matter how she tries to spin it. And she’s clearly oblivious to the harm her disgusting lies-disguised-as-free-speech can cause. I’m not advocating removing her right to say those things, but I really think this kind of crap needs to be called out and called out hard.
But one of the curious aspects of knee-jerk, überliberal homosexuals is to defend, not excoriate, such speech. They argue thusly: “if we don’t tolerate the intolerant, then how can we expect anyone to tolerate us?”
And I just had an aneurysm typing that. Like the one I had when I heard those words yesterday.
It equates what we do — choosing which people to love and fuck — with lying and assault and murder.
We are not to be tolerated. We are to be respected and granted every opportunity and every legal protection enjoyed by everyone else. Nothing less. It matters not one whit whether antigay speech and/or action is “ingrained in religious tradition” or “a reflection of prevailing social mores of a certain ethnic community” or whatever lame-ass excuse is proffered to mitigate the harm caused. It is what it is: disgusting, amoral and completely fucking unacceptable.
Every single time we encounter shit like Kern’s speech, we must fight back. With letters, phone calls, boycotts and focused, unchallenged, unified outrage. There’s no room for complacency or idiotic defenses. We can’t just listen ever again.
You don’t get to call yourselves a community until you start behaving like one.
12 comments
Hate speech should never be tolerated. Never. While it is the right of every American, nay, every human, to exercise free speech, that doesn’t mean that people should just roll over and accept hate speech directed at them under the name of free speech. As you say, this sort of thing needs to be fought tooth and nail, so that others realize that it is NOT acceptable to allow others to attack you because you happen to love or think or look differently than they do.
We all have the right to say what we think. I absolutely believe that. But we also all have the right to defend ourselves against attacks, whether physical or verbal. Because words DO wound. And words CAN lead to killing. Words are very, very powerful weapons.
We must never forget that.
Oh, God. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Oh, my FUCKING God. As fucking Pollyanna as it is, honestly, they only way I can handle bazoo shit like this which uses religious fervor as justification (I’m sorry — what the HELL god promotes hatred?) is to try and find something positive in it. Yes, Pollyanna; but’s it either that or commit suicide, so here goes: it was posted as the abomination that it is. I’m not advocating complacency. YES, it must be fought against; YES, tolerating the intolerant is a really weird sidestepping of the issue. Maybe the sidesteppers are those who just can’t face a wall of hatred, like me. So, an alternative perspective, to complement those who will charge right in, like you: at least there is a foundation to climb from, built by everyone who went before us. To ignore that foundation, to not build upon that foundation, is disrespectful of those who built it. If you’re so hung up on respect, then focus on respecting THEM by building on it as you can, instead of making sure to respect those who disrespect — fuck, HATE — you.
It may surprise you, Cora, to know that I don’t have much argument with what you say. Every response to an outrageous event must be met with a chorus of opposition, and it’s natural for that chorus to have voices of different tone and strength. The great majority should, as you say, build upon foundations already laid. But I do feel — unsurprisingly? — that at least part of the response to an outrageous event must be… outrage. That’s where I come in. At the other end of the spectrum, tolerating the intolerant, well, that’s what this here post was all about.
It seems to me that the voters of Oklahoma have some choices to make come election time.
But I also wonder, knowing that there are two sides to every story, why did someone choose to “sneak” this “information” out.
Maybe we should all send Kern an email telling her, “Shame on you.”
I’m honored to be a teacher in Pennsylvania, BTW.
Because they had a
soulconscience? You’re right, there are two sides to every story. In this particular story, there’s the horrible, bigoted woman. And the other side is someone wanting to expose a lying, delusional, hateful hypocrite.And, indeed, we can send Ms. Kern an email: sallykern@okhouse.gov. And, remember, not everyone needs to be angry-yelling, you can be angry-respectful, too. When you figure out how to do that, please let me know.
I read that she got over 23,000 e-mails in the first week.
All respect to the rights of free speech, which allowed Ms. Kern to reveal her mouldering little soul.
[...] course I’m talking about myself, not Jesse Kern, son of homophobic bigot Sally Kern (R, Oklahoma), who issued the following statement: The son of a state lawmaker who has condemned [...]
Ms. Kern, like the rest of us, has the right to free speech. What she does *not* have is the right to *speech without consequences or criticism.* Just like Barack Obama in regards to his pastor. Just like the Dixie Chicks. Just like Trent Lott. Etc. At some point along the way, people confused “the right to express oneself without being censored by the government” with “the right to say what one wants without any consequences or criticism for doing so.” The latter right does not exist. Dooce got fired. Trent Lott got booted from his role as Majority Leader. Many people have gotten banned from TWoP over the years. If Kerns really, truly, honestly believes that her words are correct – that she’s speaking truth to power – then she should *welcome* criticism and blowback, because she has drawn them by speaking about her deepest beliefs. I actually think that, while Kerns is rabidly homophobic, she doesn’t quite believe what she said – give her a choice between being in a locked room with three gun-wielding terrorists and three gun-wielding members of the Pink Pistols and I can pretty much guarantee she’d take the latter.
And in this day and age, public figures should assume that ANYTHING they say can be recorded and put onto YouTube. Anything at all. Especially when they’re representing part or all of a state in which a building was blown up in a terrorist act within the last two decades or so. I wonder what the parents of the children killed in the Oklahoma City bombing think about Kerns. I suspect they don’t quite agree with her take on the matter. They have a right to free speech as well.
As for tolerating intolerance…has anyone suggested that Kerns be kidnapped and gagged? No? Okay, then you’re allowing her to express her intolerant views all she wants. That’s an acceptable level of tolerance. Beyond that, anyone who opposes her – just like anyone who supports her – has the right to freedom of speech regarding said opposition. That’s not intolerance – that’s the routine exchange of concepts in the marketplace of ideas that underpins a healthy free society.
Apologies for the occasional use of “Kerns” rather than “Kern” in the post above…
For the record, marion, it took me two or three edits to get all the Kernses down to Kern, too.
And thanks for the awesome comment.
Thankfully there is going to be a rally at the OK Capitol building tomorrow…
http://community.pflag.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=866&srcid=194
[...] ears completely bleed out, but just in case you were wondering whether the controversy regarding Republican Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern’s recent, bigoted outburst might have, oh, I dunno, taught this fucking idiot anything, this might enlighten [...]