Group releases audio tape of its meeting with Kern
Source: PFAG blog
After Kern disagreed with PFLAG's characterization of a meeting she'd had with Oklahoma PFLAG members, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) has released the full 40-minute audio of the meeting.
The un-edited audio was posted in five parts to PFLAG's section on YouTube after Kern insisted the organization had misrepresented her statements to reporters following the March 27 sit-down.
After the meeting, which was positively characterized by PFLAG members as helpful, Kern denied that she spoke out against job discrimination against gays or that she agreed to consider an ongoing dialogue with PFLAG families.
On the recording released today, Kern twice agrees with PFLAG supporters that gay Americans should not be fired from their jobs simply because of their sexual orientation.
She goes on to say that “maybe” she would consider a follow-up meeting with PFLAG families in her district and agrees to a dinner invitation from a PFLAG supporter in the meeting. Near the end of the conversation, Kern is asked, in recapping the conversation, if she does indeed oppose anti-gay job discrimination; she responds affirmatively that she does.
The following is a commentary on the meeting and the reasons for releasing the tape posted to the official PFLAG blog:
Oklahoma Representative Sally Kern just doesn’t seem to learn: Tape recorders are decidedly not her friend.
It’s been just over a week since the midwest’s favorite homophobe told her local paper, The Oklahoman, that PFLAG supporters from the state took her “statements and have spun them” to misrepresent her views on anti-gay job discrimination and her vow to at least consider an ongoing dialogue with us. Her comments followed a meeting at the state capitol with Oklahoma City PFLAG president Rev. Loyce Newton-Edwards and two other local supporters.
PFLAG applauded Kern for agreeing to the sit-down . . . only to be on the receiving end of a mad Sally slap-down. Kern and her supporters went so far as to refer to the three members of the clergy who took part in the meeting as “false prophets,” and attacked the credibility of our Oklahoma PFLAG families. And even though we weighed in with our own fact-check of Sally’s allegations, she continued to insist that she did not say what she said.
So now it’s time to get out the audio player again. Sally Kern, meet yourself on the YouTube.
That’s right. Sally’s staff consented to having her meeting with PFLAG recorded, and her words speak for themselves.
As the full 40-minute audio recording released this morning by PFLAG proves, Kern said not once (at about 15 minutes and 30 seconds in) that she does not believe GLBT people should be fired from their jobs . . . but she said it twice (again at about 33:15), confirming her stance when Rev. Kathy McCallie recaps the meeting near its end. And, when asked by Rev. Newton-Edwards if she would consider attending future PFLAG meetings to hear from other families in her district, Kern says - almost joyfully - “maybe.”
She even says - when asked if she and her husband will join a PFLAG supporter for dinner - “Sure!”
In fact, if you look at PFLAG’s characterization of the meeting last week, and Kern’s version of the encounter in the local press, there is no question that Sally flat-out lied to reporters.
But wait! There are even more priceless gems in Sally’s bag of tricks.
Among the other topics she addresses in the meeting? Her time as a teacher in Oklahoma’s schools (where, one imagines, she must have been chair of the revisionist history department). Kern says she had one student, in particular, who left an impression: A “homosexual student” who was on the girls’ golf team (which Kern apparently coached!) and so impressed our future state Representative that she insisted the budding lesbian sign up for AP Government class.
Yes, Sally Kern can now reveal the shocking truth: Lesbians, on occasion, are good at golf. Clear out a deck chair at Dinah Shore, ladies . . . next year’s poster girl is on her way.
Kern also weighs in on “the homosexual agenda,” which, she explains, is a lot like a “to-do list.” And to-do lists are suddenly all the rage, for sure. According to Kern, everyone has one these days, Jesus and Tim Gill included.
But perhaps Sally’s most poignant moment is one that exists only in her head. Midway through the conversation, and clearly an hour or so before her next round of medication is due, Kern waxes philosophical on the awesome power of teachers . . . to convince our children they’re gay.
It is the story of little Jimmy, a theoretical Oklahoma school boy who leaves home one day, presumably heterosexual, and heads off to learn his ABCs. But little Jimmy is unaware that his teacher has an entirely different “to-do list” for the day.
The teacher, Kern explains, lines the children up on the playground and begins to count off: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 . . . and then, abruptly, declares little Jimmy to be a little bit gay.
Yes, it’s all included - in five parts, kind of like the Star Wars saga - in the long awaited Sally Kern sequel. Our lady of the perpetual audio tapes answers all of our burning questions.
Can lesbians be good at government and golf? (Sally, meet Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin.)
Does Tim Gill have a longer to-do list than the holy father?
Are our school children powerless to overcome the fairy-dust spell of their grade school teachers?
And, of course, the biggest question of all: When Sally Kern lied, did little Jimmy cry? Or did he, like our smart PFLAG families, just get out his tape recorder and re-live the experience all over again?
Part 2 of 5 of the full tape. Kern defines "agenda." See all five parts.
Full article: The PFLAG National Blog » Blog Archive » From the Office of Sally Kern