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Thu March 20, 2008

‘I'm not going to apologize'

 
 
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By Michael McNutt
Capitol Bureau
Rep. Sally Kern said Wednesday she will not apologize for calling homosexuality the biggest threat facing America during a speech she gave earlier this year.

Kern can be heard making the statements on a copy of what appears to be an unedited, raw recording of her speech at an Oklahoma City Republican club meeting in January. Someone anonymously gave a recording of the speech to The Oklahoman.

A sampling of her most inflammatory comments totaling about three minutes have been placed on the Web site YouTube. Kern's speech lasted nearly 35 minutes; about 25 minutes was on the topic of homosexuality in the United States with Kern talking the rest of the time about bills she proposed filing for the upcoming legislative session.

The comments posted on YouTube caused outrage among gays and their supporters. Several groups have asked her to apologize. Two rallies have been held in Oklahoma City, the most recent on Tuesday at the state Capitol in which speakers again called for her to apologize.

‘I'm not going to apologize for what the Bible teaches, I'm not going to apologize for exercising my First Amendment right,” said Kern, R-Oklahoma City. "I'm not going to apologize for a hate speech when I did no hate speech.”

Kern can be heard on the recording telling those attending a meeting of the Northwest Republican Club that homosexuality is the "the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.”

Tom Roach, president of the Northwest Republican Club, said Kern spoke to his group Jan. 10, but he doesn't know who recorded herspeech. The club, which is not affiliated with any Republican Party committee, has about 50 members, most of whom Roach described as conservative.

Kern made the statement after talking about the strategy of gay rights supporters to defeat conservative candidates.

"The very fact that I'm talking to you like this here today puts me in jeopardy,” she said in her speech. "So, so be it. I'm not anti, I'm not gay bashing, but according to God's word, that is not the right kind of lifestyle. It has deadly consequences for those people involved in it. They have more suicides ... there's more illness. Their life spans are shorter. It's not a lifestyle that is good for this nation. As a matter of fact, studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it's the death knell for this country. I honestly think it's the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat.”

Someone attending the meeting taped her comments and sent it to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a nonpartisan group in Washington that supports gay elected officials. Before and after Kern spoke, a couple people, apparently club members, talked about the need for Republicans this year to defeat Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Jim Roth, a Democrat who is openly gay.

Chuck Wolfe, president of the group, said earlier that his organization received the recording a couple weeks before it was posted March 7 on its Web site. The recording eventually was posted on YouTube.

"What is on YouTube is a blanket misrepresentation of what I was saying,” Kern said Wednesday. "I was not giving a speech ranting against homosexuals. I was giving a speech discussing the political agenda of activist homosexuals.”

Kern said she attended a pro-family conference for legislators in October in Dallas where she was told about a movement that started about four years ago to elect gay candidates into office.

In her speech, she said Tim Gill, a software developer in Denver, teamed with others in contributing $30 million in 2006 to local and state races; their goal was to defeat conservative candidates. The group targeted 13 states and 70 local races and defeated 50 conservative officials.

"Here's the problem,” Kern said in her speech. "The gay people are motivated. Whether you're Christian or not, if you're just a good conservative, if we were as motivated as the gay people were, the contest would be over. That's just all there is to it. It would be over. But we aren't motivated.

"The book that I base my life upon is God's word. It says to love everybody and I try to love everybody. But not everybody's lifestyle is equal, just like not all religions are equal,” Kern said.

Kern called herself a social conservative in her speech. "What's happening now is they're going after in schools, 2-year-olds,” she said. "You know why they're trying to get early childhood education? They want to get our young children into the government schools so they can indoctrinate them. I taught school for close to 20 years and we're not teaching facts and knowledge anymore, folks. We're teaching indoctrination. We're turning out a citizenry who are learners but not thinkers. By that I mean they take whatever's thrown at them. They don't question it.

"They're going after our young children, as young as 2 years of age to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle.” Kern said social conservative billionaires "are few and far between” and don't match the contributions being made by gay supporters.

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