Certified Cameronite: Sally Kern

Jim Burroway

March 29th, 2008

Certified Cameronite AwardOne thing you can say about Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern is this: She doesn’t give up. And the more she talks, the more she embarrasses herself and the good citizens of Oklahoma’s District 84. Today, the Bethany Tribune published a letter to the editor (A permanent copy is available here as PDF.) Kern’s letter contains the usual misinformation from the usual sources.

Kern’s very first paragraph cites a study titled, “The Lifespan of Homosexuals,” immediately following a sentence which references the CDC. The way it’s written, casual readers may assume that “The Lifespan of Homosexuals” was a CDC study, but they’d be wrong. That so-called “study” is actually from none other than Paul Cameron, the discredited “researcher” who has been censured and/or kicked out of virtually every professional association he’s ever been associated with for repeated ethics violations and gross professional misconduct. Most recently, he was censured by the president of the Eastern Psychological Association for misrepresenting his participating at their 2007 conference. In 1999, Paul Cameron wrote “Gays in Nazi Germany,” in which he whitewashed the treatment of gays in Nazi concentration camps, and he has advocated similar draconian measures throughout his career here in the U.S.

Oklahoma State Sen. Sally KernSally Kern will reach for anything to demonize gay and lesbian citizens of her district and beyond, including the rantings of a Nazi sympathizer and holocaust revisionist. We first awarded Kern the LaBarbera Award for her outrageous fear-mongering comments, saying that gays were “the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.” As a Certified Cameronite, Kern has completed her own evolution to the lowest depths of extremist rhetoric. She now joins the ranks of so many others who care neither for the truth, ethics, or simple human decency in their zeal to render LGBT citizens as second class — or worse.

Hat tip: Alvin McEwen

See also:
Sally Kern Is a Little Confused
Sally Kern’s Economic Fallout
Sally Kern’s Meeting with PFLAG on Tape
Exodus’ Local Ministry Aligns with Sally Kern
Certified Cameronite: Sally Kern
Kern Speaks to College Republicans
Sally Kern: Out of Context? The Complete Transcript
We Be Jammin’
Muslims and Gays United
OK State Rep. Sally Kern’s Son is “Straight and Not Gay”
Sally Kern Exaggerates Death Threats
A Letter to Sally Kern
LaBarbera Award: Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern

David

March 29th, 2008

This is surprising? Her letter contains this sentence: “Homosexuals are already citizens who have equal rights. They want “special rights” for the acceptance of their deviant lifestyle.”

Speaking of studies, I’m still waiting for her to tell us just what studies reveal that any society that embraces homosexuality is doomed to disappear within a few decades.

Timothy Kincaid

March 29th, 2008

I’m thankful that Oklahoma is different than California and New York.

Oh me too, Mrs. Kern. I’m very very thankful.

I live in California.

grantdale

March 29th, 2008

Puke. Plainly a reprobate.

Here’s the cautions that Statistics Canada gives around the “twice as violent” data:

1. Readers are cautioned that the results of the survey describe rates of violence committed against those who self-identified themselves as gay/lesbian, but does not distinguish the sexual orientation of the perpetrator of the violence.

2. Use with caution, coefficient of variation is high (16.6% to 33.3%).

But, hey, when you’re on a mission… throw all caution to the wind.

Notably missing, this that preceded … “1% of victims indicated that they were gay or lesbian”.

Just 1% — hey, there’s more of us than that! This alone implies we either are not, or at least don’t report, a rate of partner violence in proportion to our actual numbers. Oh. Damn.

(In other comment, Statistics Canada noted that 2.5% of a data-set of police reports involved a same-sex couple.)

Which sounds to me … it’s about the same, overall. Or perhaps less, if a behavorally homosexual figure of 5+% is used. Self-report and under-report presents major difficulties, as always.

The American College of Pediatricians, who she also quotes, is of course a fake : or, as PFLAG puts it, a “small splinter group of medical professionals who do not support the mainstream view of the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) that homosexuality is a normal aspect of human diversity.”

I missed any mention about us kidnapping babies for use in secret blood ceremonies.

Oh, sorry: I think that one’s about Jews.

grantdale

March 29th, 2008

Sorry Jim, bad me. It would help if I pointed people to the reports by Statistics Canada wouldn’t it…

Look for:

85-224-XIE

and

85-570-XIE

There’s actually quite a few more, but those about sum it up.

cooner

March 29th, 2008

“Homosexuals are already citizens who have equal rights. They want “special rights” for the acceptance of their deviant lifestyle.” -Sally Kern

I always hate the ‘special rights’ argument. Hate crime laws are used to defend anybody. As far as marriage, the whole “You have the equal right to marry, as long as it’s someone of the opposite sex” is ludicrous, as well … We don’t do arranged marriages in America. Part of the right to marry is the right to marry the person you choose to spend your life with. How would Ms. Kern have liked it if she were told she were free to marry anyone from THIS HALF of the male population, and her husband (who she presumably loves) was unfortunately placed on the opposite side?

My father used to parrot all the right-wing talk about ‘special rights’ all the time. Ever since I came out to both my parents, it’s something he’s come to feel deeply pained and ashamed of, now that he sees things from a slightly different perspective.

Joel

March 29th, 2008

Homosexuals insist they are born gay, yet a study by Dr. Neil Whitehead and Briar
Whitehead on various cultures states: “If homosexuality were influenced by genes,
it would appear in every culture, but in 29 of 79 cultures surveyed in 1952,
homosexuality was rare or absent.”

how accurate is this? If this is true as she states than that is more than conclusive proof that homosexuals are environmentally developed, and the homosexual agenda(or pro-gays) are to blame.

Neil H

March 30th, 2008

Homosexuals insist they are born gay, yet a study by Dr. Neil Whitehead and Briar
Whitehead on various cultures states: “If homosexuality were influenced by genes,
it would appear in every culture, but in 29 of 79 cultures surveyed in 1952,
homosexuality was rare or absent.”

how accurate is this?

Well, the first lie is that this statistic is from a “a study by Dr. Neil Whitehead and Briar Whitehead on various cultures”. But Cameronites are famously bad at doing proper scientific attribution, and when they do attribute properly they usually misrepresent what they’re attributing, so that lie should not be surprising.

The real story is this: Whitehead and Whitehead released a book called “My Genes made me do it a scientific look at Sexual Orientation”, available for free download here. A quick look through their material seems to indicate a position aimed at refuting the existing evidence pointing to links between genetics and homosexuality. Their more recent updates seem aimed at refuting the links between non-genetic biological processes and homosexuality as well.

The survey that Kern wrongly attributes to them is actually a reference to another study in chapter six: a book by CS Ford and FA Beach called “Patterns of Sexual Behaviour” (too old to be easily available, alas: it was published in 1952).

Whitehead and Whitehead are intellectually honest enough to admit the obvious flaws in relying on external observers like cultural anthropologists for details about private, internal behaviours like sexual acts, so this is hardly “more than conclusive proof” of anything. Unfortunately they neglect to mention that they’re only referring to findings about incidence of same-sex sexual behaviour, and make the all-too-common mistake of equating same-sex sexual behaviour with same-sex attraction. They are not the same thing, and this simple mistake pervades everything I’ve read so far in Whitehead and Whitehead’s book.

If this is true as she states than that is more than conclusive proof that homosexuals are environmentally developed, and the homosexual agenda(or pro-gays) are to blame.

Funnily enough, Whitehead and Whitehead point out also that there are societies in which there are no taboos against homosexual behaviour discovered but in which homosexual behaviour was not observed by anthropologists or missionaries. What does that say about claims that the “homosexual agenda” is to “blame” for the incidence of homosexuality in the West? What does it say about the general reliability of Whitehead and Whitehead?

Stefano

March 30th, 2008

As a Certified Cameronite, Kern has completed her own evolution to the lowest depths of extremist rhetoric. She now joins the ranks of so many others who care neither for the truth, ethics, or simple human decency in their zeal to render LGBT citizens as second class — or worse.

Rep. Sally Kern: . . .I do not support laws that would force employers to check their First Amendment rights to freedom of religion, speech, and association at the workplace door.

In addition to her references to bogus studies and distortions of legitimate ones, I find her entire thought processes extremely troubling coming from a legislator. So! She would like for any employer or employee to be able to express their most hateful or bigotted opinions in the work place, including the right to, evidently, only associate with people of whom she approves? Hmmmmmm?!? This begs the question(s): “Sally! Does this extend to the Aryan Brotherhood? Are you also in favor of them NOT checking their “rights to freedom of religion, speech, and association at the workplace door”???!!!!

As an aside, I always find it laughable when people like Kern speak of “special rights”. I mean, come on… who exactly is seeking “special rights”? Us or those who: (1)have written into law the right to marry as being their personal exclusive right; (2) who is lobbying for preferential treatment to be given to their singular sectarian and denominational beliefs to the exclusion of all others, etc.?

She’s a real piece of work.

Jason D

March 30th, 2008

“You have the equal right to marry, as long as it’s someone of the opposite sex”

I’ve always handled that one with a simple analogy:

Telling a gay man he can marry any woman he wants is like telling a man in a wheelchair he can use any staircase he wants.

It is technically possible that a man in a wheelchair could use the handrail to pull himself and his chair up a staircase. It is technically possible he could simply leave the chair at the bottom, climbing up the stairs using his hands and elbows.

Sure, it’s technically possible that I could marry a woman: but the question is, why should I have to? Why should she have to? We have escalators that allow people who have a different way of moving around to get where they need to go.

Ben in Oakland

March 30th, 2008

Joel; more important, this “study” (actually a survey– a world of difference) was conducted in 1952– NINETEEN FIFTY TWO.

A vastly different world– one which you oculd be killed, jailed, or committed for this crime against nature not to be named among Christians.

I always wonder how this kind of inteelectual and moral dishonesty allows these homobigots to sleep at night.

Emproph

March 30th, 2008

Excellent report Neil H. I started to look that up earlier and got distracted. I didn’t even realize it was from the actual book “My Genes Made Me Do It!,” which I own – and bought specifically because I kept seeing it recommended by the anti-gay sites. I don’t think I’ve picked it up since I got it, but fortunately when I did, I made sure to go through it for Cameron citations. Four of them, BY NAME, and it’s © 1999, so credibility obviously descends from there.

P.S. Ben, that was my first thought too, they didn’t even have cell phones back then let alone the internet (among an infinite number of other significant variables) – how relevant a study could it be? -On TOP of the appeal to tradition!

grantdale

March 30th, 2008

Ford and Beach’s book has an extra dimension to it that is often not mentioned.

To start with the data itself… Ford and Beach didn’t go visit 79 individual cultures around the World with a clipboard and reel-to-reel recorder. Instead, they raided the archives at Yale (?).

Some of these cultural studies did not make mention of homosexuality — doesn’t mean it didn’t exist or occur, obviously; but the studies were silent on the subject, or noted the topic had not been covered etc. (we are talking pre-1951 here, when such reticence was not uncommon). Some of these cultural studies were rather old, even then.

But what they did find was that (at least) 49 of these cultures are recorded as viewing homosexuality as an entirely normal sexuality. One that was accepted, even lauded by some.

Now… the interesting bit… in 1952 homosexuality was also first declared a mental illness in the DSM 1.

Declared so by (essentially) white American psychoanalysts drawing on the older and negative views of white European psychoanalysts.

As Ford and Beach too obviously displayed — this was a wrong declaration, hide-bound in its own culture and prejudice; and ultimately reflecting social mores rather than science and research.

If most of the cultures did not view homosexuality as a pathological state… why did 1952 America?

It took 21 years for that error to begin to be corrected, even though it was plainly a flawed and narrowly-based opinion right from the start.

Personally I rate Ford and Beach as at least as significant as Kinsey and Hooker, in terms of the bombshell it contains. It was ignored by medical professionals because… Ford and Beach were anthropologists.

Brady

March 31st, 2008

I’m hoping someone is planning to write a response to the Bethany Tribune. Is anyone here planning on doing that?

Timothy Kincaid

March 31st, 2008

“…in 29 of 79 cultures surveyed in 1952, homosexuality was rare or absent.”

That could have included the United States in 1952. Heck, if you were writing about the culture in Iowa today you would find hmosexaulity to be “rare”.

gordo

March 31st, 2008

“if you were writing about the culture in Iowa today you would find hmosexaulity to be “rare”.”

That is so not true. There a lot of gay life in Iowa and not just the larger cities.

Timothy Kincaid

March 31st, 2008

Iowa has about 3 million residents.

Gaybars.com lists 15 gars in the state. Gaychurches.org lists one predominantly gay church with 65 others that are welcoming. My roommate went to college in Iowa and found his campus to be a welcoming and sheltering oasis in a sea of clueless heterosexuality.

I am absolutely certain that Iowa is a lovely place filled with wonderful people. And I mean no insult to the great state or her people.

But I suspect that any anthropologist that were looking at the culture of Iowans would find homosexuality to be decidedly rare – or at least not a significant part of the dominant culture. Such an anthropologist would probably have to seek out such activity.

That being said, that Iowa has a thriving gay community proves my point . So too did probably some of the 29 cultures in which there was no reference to homosexuality.

Just cuz it ain’t visible up front don’t mean it ain’t there.

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