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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyApril 16th, 2008
In tough economic times, a state needs every advantage it can get to lure jobs. Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern’s recent anti-gay tirades, in which she says that gays are a bigger threat than terrorism, is giving at least one Fortune 500 company second thoughts about locating part of its workforce to Oklahoma:
Tom Maloney, vice president of California-based Staubach Co., would neither confirm nor deny that the 1,000-employee, AAA-rated client company’s top executive is a lesbian who expressed concern over Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern’s recent anti-homosexual statements, as has been the topic circulating among local business leaders. …
“He told us straight up … ‘I cannot recommend to any of my clients that they should consider Oklahoma City because of that,'” [Roy] Williams [resident of the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber] said. “When you have one of the nation’s premier relocation experts making those statements, you should pay attention to that and not dismiss it.
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
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Buffy
April 16th, 2008
Very nice. While Kern and her supporters imagine they’re on a righteous crusade to restore Biblical morality to America, they’re actually harming it by fostering a climate of hatred and intolerance. I don’t imagine they’ll see actions like this, however, as anything but persecution.
Butch
April 17th, 2008
Well said Buffy!
I can’t imagine who would want to go to a place like Oklhoma anyway.
I propose a new slogan for Oklahoma:
Oklahoma… a CHRISTIAN church state. All others KEEP OUT.
Jim Burroway
April 17th, 2008
Actually, I’ve been to Oklahoma many times and have always had a wonderful time there. Tulsa, as I understand it, has a thriving gay community, and the Williams Institute’s demographic data shows that there are gay couples living in every county of the state. I imagine many of them are living there because there are things they appreciate in the communities in which they live.
Be careful painting an entire state with a broad brush like that. Oklahoma is too big and diverse to be characterized by such simplistic stereotypes.
cowboy
April 17th, 2008
I have had some connections with bringing corporations to the State of Utah and I have had to deal with some of the prejudices and preconceptions of what it is like to live in an ultra-conservative (red) State and enticing corporations to bring their workforce to our State. There are complex variables involved but there are really some tangible concerns by some corporate managers about relocation or opening a business in Utah.
The obvious factors that get some corporations to even consider Utah are the taxes/incentives and the level of education of its pool of available workforce. When corporations move and there is a transfer of employees to Utah, there is a real and formidable challenge to dispel some of the stereotyping. With having the 2002 Winter Olympics here helped to dispel many of the concerns. Strange liquor laws and the general feelings there will be religious oppression at every corner by the Mormons is prevalent still. But NBA jock John Amaechi, who wrote in his book about gay life in Salt Lake City, has booted some of that negative notion out the door.
I know “gay-life†in an area is a real topic in discussions with corporations and business professionals. I know when American Express (Amex) and AT&T moved huge processing centers and office workers here there was a big concern about transferring their gay employees to Salt Lake City. It can have an adverse affect on business if the State is viewed as being too unwelcoming to gays. You can see why the Mayor of Salt Lake City is trying to keep its gay employees happy with a domestic partner regis…oops…I mean…commitment registry. It is vital in bringing money and jobs to a city.
I am sure the people in the State of Oklahoma Economic Development office has to deal with the same or similar issues. Sally Kern’s controversy is not helping them any.
James Nimmo
April 17th, 2008
Loving the Hater
While Hating the Hate
by James Nimmo
(OKLAHOMA CITY) I found a link recently to a blog (www.bilerico.com) that contains a comment (http://tinyurl.com/4qdbph) written in reaction to reading the main story about the Oklahoma City chapter of PFLAG and their recording of Rep Sally Kern (http://tinyurl.com/2zbpgn) that catches Kern in her spider web of hubris and cant.
Like the author, I too, am very disappointed with the approach of “loving the hater while hating the hate.”
Of course, I respect our supporters who use their close relationship with Jesus to try and gain support for LGBT citizens and other minorities who are used for verbal target practice in the war for suppression of civil rights.
I’m delighted the Oklahoma City PFLAG chapter was able to document the duplicity of Sally Kern and record with her permission the lies she later reported as irresponsibility on the part of PFLAG. This single incident should show you the arrogance and madness that is being passed off as legislative Republican leadership. Not one elected official in Oklahoma from either major party has come strongly to the defense and support of the LGBT taxpayers living in Oklahoma.
Had Kern used race, skin color, or ethnic origin as her subject I bet the rent she would be renewing her teaching certificate today and looking for a school that would hire her.
The First Amendment guarantees both sides the freedom to practice their respective religious viewpoints and the market place in which to talk about them.
However, this same First Amendment does NOT give either side permission to encode their religious viewpoints into CIVIL law. I feel this is where we miss the boat in establishing our birthright to equal treatment under judicial law, and not the ten laws of Deuteronomy.
There will always be a bible verse to trump the opposing bible verse resulting in a version of ping-pong skirmishes with Jesus as the referee.
The writer gives some specific examples of public, peaceful protest that we can engage in to show that LGBTs are neither the doormats nor the monsters our enemies make us to be.
It’s odd that our suppressors are either afraid to be in the same room with us, fearing for their own bodily integrity, keeping their knees close together; or they dismiss us as dippy airheads, frivolous and irresponsible. How can we be both at the same time?
Their response shows more about the fiction in their minds then about the truth of our lives.
Until we get out of the religious justification business the more we’ll be dragged into its historical quagmire. Look at the present wars being fought around the world and you’ll see religious intolerance at the root.
Our LGBT equality will have to be established in the legislatures and the courthouses in all fifty states without religious prejudice tipping the scales of justice.
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