They don't hate us - they just want to treat us

Who would have thought that anyone associated with Sally Kern would become the lgbt's best spokespeople in demonstrating the basic dishonesty of the religious right

Kern (who was re-elected in the November elections) began a firestorm earlier this year when she called lgbts "terrorists" in a speech.

Her comments initiated a groundswell of anger in the lgbt community and a rallying cry of support from the religious right.

The main thing I remember from it all was the guise that Kern took. She claimed to be a simple politician, mother, and Christian who said what she said not because she hates lgbts, but because she loves them.

That old Anita Bryant defense never goes away. Well if Kern loves us gays, then she needs to have a talk with her husband, Steve:

A special investigation has revealed Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett has his eyes on the state executive office and is working closely with religious extremists to fill the Metropolitan Library Commission of Oklahoma County with anti-gay members in order to court the fundamentalist vote.

Cornett and Steve Kern, pastor of the Olivet Baptist Church and husband to State Rep. Sally Kern, are being accused of teaming up to rid the library system of all gay and lesbian materials, as well as those their church-based philosophies find objectionable. A source close to Cornett alleges, “The Mayor is looking to become Oklahoma’s next governor in 2010. With the conservatism rampant in the state, he feels now is the time to fully side with fundamentalist Christians in order to get their backing. He believes one way of doing that is going on an all-out assault on gay citizens. Even if things are done that would later be overturned in court at a great cost to the City, he will walk away a hero to certain people.”

The insider also stated, “The Mayor is aware that Ernest Istook is returning to Oklahoma to join the governor’s race again. Istook has the conservative base locked in, so the Mayor must shake loose Istook supporters if he is to get past the Republican primary. Gays are easy targets for him. He tried to use them in 2006, but it backfired. This round he wants to make it clear he is without a doubt against gay rights.”

Gossip Boy received other tips regarding Cornett’s ambitions and the scheme to appease Christian extremists, who sided against him in the 2006 race for 5th District Congress, and began a covert ploy to expose it. A reporter posed as a citizen working with the Mayor to push gay and lesbian literature out of city libraries and contacted Steve Kern.

According to this transcript, Kern said the following regarding gays during the conversation:

"We have to get rid of that and start curing those sinners. It’s past time that this nation stopped placating sin and start putting them in education programs. Courts can force drug offenders into treatment centers and violent people into anger management. There’s no reason our courts can’t do that with homos."

Treatment centers? Isn't that special.

If this story pans out to be true then the fact that we seem to be used as a campaign issue yet again gets me upset.

We have been used so many times as campaign issues by the religious right that we should sue for our cut of their donations.

At least leave the money on the dresser, boys.

Seriously though, I don't the idea of treatment centers for gays is high on the list of religious right priorities but it does speak to their activities.

I refer to it as the Native Son philosophy.

In 1940, African-American novelist Richard Wright wrote Native Son, an excellent novel in which he declared that if black men were violent, it is because racist American society was taking every option away from them to be anything but violent.

In that same sense, the religious right likes to point to the HIV rate and studies that allegedly show lgbts suffering from a high rate of depression and the like as proof that lgbts have no sense of morality or values or that homosexuality is a "dangerous lifestyle."

But in many cases, it is religious right actions that can lead lgbts to behave in ways that are not necessarily conducive to their survival.

These actions - whether it be attempting to keep lgbt children from forming gay/straight alliances, keeping lgbts from getting married and adopting children, and very vocally complaining about any and every thing that gives a positive look at the lgbt community via libraries, movies, or municipalities - go a long way in sending a message to lgbts that we don't count as humans.

When you tell a group of people that they are diseased (physically, mentally, socially, or spiritually) and then take every option away from them that will prove you wrong, sooner or later, you will have diseased people.

So I guess that means folks like Steve Kern have been trying to "treat" us already.