Focus on the Family Action, political branch of the operator of the Love Won Out ex-gay roadshow and sponsor of ex-gay billboard campaigns, tonight defended Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern after she said gay people were the biggest threat to the United States, “even more so than terrorists and Islam.” A transcript reveals Kern’s other unfounded sound-bites about same-sex orientation:
- deadly consequences, shorter lifespan
- not an acceptable lifestyle
- the death knell for the US
- an indoctrination
- ruining youngsters’ lives
- a disease that spreads
Kern has yet to substantiate these specific beliefs with actual science or scripture, and Focus on the Family — apparently suffering from its own runaway obsession with culture war — defends Kern’s baseless characterization of Americans with same-sex orientation.
“What is truly outrageous here is that a Christian elected official can be vilified ‚Äî even have her life threatened ‚Äî over simply speaking about the Bible’s view of homosexuality,” said Gary Schneeberger [pictured], vice president for media relations at Focus on the Family Action. “Critics can quibble if they want about her comments that homosexual activists are more dangerous than terrorists, but that is certainly not something that would warrant her being forced to resign. It’s her opinion, and she’s entitled to it in our country.
Focus joins others who greatly exaggerate claims that Kern has received death threats — which, while objectionable, are beside the point.
Focus offers no explicit criticism of Kern’s inflammatory rant, which it mistakenly considers “the Bible’s view of homosexuality.” Focus implies that politicians such as Kern should not be forced to resign, no matter how vile and immoral their “opinion” may be. And Focus seems to suffer from Biblical amnesia: Having fought cultural warfare for decades, it has come to equate its own ideology with the Bible.
Focus rarely cites actual Bible verses in its political declarations; it treats the mere word “Bible” as a seal of approval that excuses its articles’ failure to justify falsehoods and warfare from verses of the actual Bible.
