Texas clearly doesn’t have a monopoly on right-wing nonsense. A group of Oklahoma lawmakers is issuing a proclamation that blames gays, abortion supporters and a host of other demons for the nation’s current economic crisis. Really.
You can check out the proclamation on the Web site of Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern. Kern has made news in the past for — among other things — claiming that homosexuality is a greater threat to national security than terrorism.
The proclamation claims that the nation’s current economic troubles “are consequences of our greater national moral crisis”:
“(T)his nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery . . .”
Then it lays the blame for this moral crisis at the feet of the President Obama for, in part, refusing to participate in a public National Day of Prayer ceremony and for honoring Gay Pride Month (disregarding, the proclamation says, “the biblical admonitions to live clean and pure lives by proclaiming an entire month to an immoral behavior.”)
The proclamation calls for Christian renewal for the nation and a return to living by biblical principles.
Unlike Kern, apparently, we don’t recall that Lehman Brothers, AIG and a host of other finance powerhouses collapsed last fall because their employees were racing out the door to get abortions or to watch Adam and Steve or Thelma and Louise get hitched.
Needless to say, Kern’s proclamation is raising hackles.
The thing is, a group of lawmakers can issue any proclamation they want, right? As long as it’s not passed as a resolution, all it reflects is the opinions of a few people. It may say something about those who elected them, but I bet a lot of people who voted for them think it’s silly too.
People who have something to share, ideas to share, and worthwhile contributions never need to label, demonize other folks. Their pracitice of pushing others down so that they may step on them to glorify their positions is not justice nor Christian.
Being raised as an ELCA Lutheran…and a Liberal Christian, almost every Liberal Democrat in America has their political thinking created in Progressive, Mainstream, Liberal churches…so allowing America’s rightwing, conservative, intollerant, extremists Republican/Christians to hijack Christianity…is akin to what the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, and al Qeida has done with Islam. Conservative Republicans and Conservative Muslims are both intollerant, viscious, hate-mongers…who preach hatred for everyone and anyone that doesn’t fallow in lock-step with their brutal, mysoginistic, homophobic, anti-Liberal, anti-Modernity political agendas. What’s next for the evil and brutal conservative Christians in Texas/Oklahoma…stoneing Gays and Liberal Democrats to death? Signed…a Liberal Democrat/Christian…Alvin, Texas!
In other periods of history, Jews were blamed for all kinds of calamities, economic and environmental. Gays have now joined Jews in being credited with society’s ills.
A “return to living by biblical principles”? Does that mean we’re all to start gathering piles of stones?