Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern has
defended filing three bills targeting the gay community, saying that
sexual orientation is a choice gay people can make.
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 in October 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.
(Related: More
than 3,200 gay couples marry in Oklahoma.)
The bill seeks to cut off government
funding for the licensing or support of such unions in Oklahoma.
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.”
“It's a bill about freedom,” Kern
said of her legislative proposal on conversion therapy. “Why
shouldn't a parent have the freedom to take their child who's
struggling with same sex attraction, which we're having more and more
of today. Why? Because it's promoted and pushed in the schools.”
On her marriage bill, Kern asked, “Who
do we answer to?”
“Do we answer to the judges or do we
answer to the people of the state of Oklahoma?”
“They have every right to believe the
way they want,” she said. “They have every right to practice the
lifestyle they want to, but they don't have the right to push it down
the throat of the rest of America to where we have to say we accept
it morally. And that's what they want. It's like oil and water, it
won't mix.”
The whole premise of this,” she
continued, “is are you born this way, homosexual or not? And the
homosexuals say we're born this way so you have to accept us.
There's no credible scientific evidence showing this.”
Kern, a Baptist minister's wife,
suggested that gay rights supporters are attempting to undermine
religion: “If there was proof, then see this book right here, the
Bible? Throw it out. This book has stood the test of time and
you're not gong to find proof.”
Troy Stevenson, executive director of
LGBT rights advocate Freedom Oklahoma, criticized the bills, saying,
“It's basically a reinstitution of segregation, except this time
the gay community won't have a water fountain sitting there, it will
be straights only.”
The 68-year-old Kern previously made
headlines for saying that “the homosexual agenda is a bigger threat
than terrorism” at a 2008 gathering of Republicans.