If you read this site on occasion, you probably know that State Rep. Sally Kern has been heavily criticized in the local and national media for saying a bunch of nutty things. Just to name a few, she's claimed homosexuals are a bigger threat to our country than terrorists, African Americans are inherently lazy, and women don't earn as much as men because they want to be at home with their babies.
In response to this widespread criticism, Sally plays the victim card. She'll whine that her statements are taken out of context or she'll try to justify her bigoted views in the form of a trite apology. I heard one time she even accused a gay waiter at the Olive Garden of spitting in her salad.
Anyway, the culmination of Sally's big pity party took place last spring when she released her self-published book called "The Stoning of Sally Kern: The liberal attack on Christian conservatism-and why we must take a stand."
Sally recently appeared on a conservative radio show to pimp the book. The audio of the interview is here. If you're having a bad day and want to pull your hair out, it's worth a listen. For me, the most irritating part was at the very beginning. Here's a transcript of it that we found from RightWingWatch.com:
Barton: With all of the protection we have for free speech, there’s still a number of areas where you’re not free to speak out on certain things...If you touch homosexuality, be prepared to pay a price, not just attacks, it’s gonna cost you economically, other things as well, may cost your life. This is, the way people respond to what you say about homosexuality if you criticize it and we got Sally Kern today, State Rep from Oklahoma who experienced that first time, what happens if you exercise your right of free speech and happen to say something disparaging about homosexuality.
Kern: I have to be honest with you Rick, when I was sitting there in my car that day and when she told me that those emails were coming from homosexuals, honestly, fear gripped by whole body, because I was very aware of the homosexual lobbyists and the power that they have. And people say, ‘oh you’re so brave, so heroic,’ but I’m not, I’m just a sinner saved by grace and I was gripped with fear that day. I just said, ‘Lord, what have I done?’
Green: And not just I would think not just fear, not a political fear, physical fear; there’s a militant agenda out there as well.
Kern: It entered our mind but honestly, and I mentioned this in the book, the Saturday night when my husband and I sit down and really talked about this and prayed about it, when we asked ourselves the question, are we willing to even lose our lives over this? I can’t tell you, Rick, how liberating that was, it really was.
First of all, don't worry. You can still "speak out" about homosexuality if you want to. In fact, I think you can pretty much say whatever you to whoever you want just about whenever you want. The catch is when you say something that offends millions of people — like stating a large demographic of law abiding human beings are more dangerous than terrorists — those people can then use their first amendment rights to respond to you.
The response they give can take many shapes and forms. For example, someone could write a simple blog post making fun of a book you recently published, or people could organize and form a mass protest. If you want to avoid responses like that, just use your first amendment right and keep your bigoted, idiotic remarks to yourself. Pretty easy, huh?
In addition to the general misunderstanding of the first amendment, the interview had some other highlights. Kern admits that she's probably not electable outside of her house district. That's news because it's logical, reasonable and true...three things Sally has always struggled with.
She also mentioned she's scared of powerful "homosexual lobbyists." I've heard rumors of these lobbyists at the capital. They all dress nice, throw the best parties and refer to themselves as the "Boren Barry Junior Boys." Watch out for them. They are usually found giving gardening tips to Al McCaffrey.
