Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern has
filed three bills targeting the gay community.
According to the Tulsa
World, one bill, titled the Preservation and Sovereignty of
Marriage Act, threatens government employees who issue marriage
licenses to gay and lesbian couples.
Gay couples started marrying in the
state after the Supreme Court refused to review an appeals court's
ruling declaring unconstitutional a 2004 voter-approved
constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.
More than 3,200 such licenses have been issued since the high court's
October 6 ruling.
(Related: More
than 3,200 gay couples marry in Oklahoma.)
House Bill 1599 seeks to cut off
government funding for the licensing or support of marriage equality
in Oklahoma.
“No employee of this state and no
employee of any local government entity shall officially recognize,
grant or enforce a same-sex marriage license and continue to receive
a salary, pension or other employee benefit at the expense of
taxpayers of this state,” the bill states. “No taxes or public
funds of this state shall be spent enforcing any court order
requiring the issuance or recognition of a same-sex marriage
license.”
Kern's proposal also threatens state
judges with dismissal if they do not dismiss any challenge to the
act.
The 68-year-old Kern made headlines for
saying that “the homosexual agenda is a bigger threat than
terrorism” at a 2008 gathering of Republicans.
In an interview last year with Janet
Parshall, Kern, a Baptist minister's wife, defended her remarks.
“So everybody understands terrorism
destroys peoples' lives. It destroys property. All I meant was, all
I was saying was the homosexual agenda is destroying people's live.
More people have died from AIDS than have died from a terrorist
attack here in America. It's destroying the moral fiber of our
nation, that's all I meant,” Kern
told Parshall.
The controversy that ensued “broke my
heart because so often what they were doing; they weren't just
stoning me, they were stoning and desecrating the God that I love.”
Kern's other proposals include allowing
parents to seek therapy to change an LGBT teen's sexuality without
state interference and allowing businesses to refuse service “to
any lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person, group or
association.”
So-called Sexual Orientation Change
Efforts (SOCE) have been banned in two states, California and New
Jersey, and the District of Columbia, with more states debating the
issue. Opponents say such therapies are ineffective and harm
children.