After a reported 1000 people showed up at Oklahoma's state capitol on Wednesday to support Sally Kern and her idea that the law should be changed to make gay people second-class citizens (if not criminals), even the Oklahoman is starting to report on some people getting the right idea.

"Religion can be a positive force. It's intended to be a positive voice for folks who may not have a voice," said the Rev. Jeff Hamilton, head of the Interfaith Alliance of Oklahoma and a former state legislator. "The voice of religion should be speaking out against discrimination. ... my real worry is that in the legislative process, this sectarianism is used to institutionalize prejudice, institutionalize policies that affect negatively people on the margins of life. And that goes contrary to the Christian point of view and Jesus of Nazareth.

"You're entitled as a Christian to have your beliefs even though your factual basis is not sound, but you cannot cloak yourself in holiness and claim that everything you say is factually correct or biblically correct."

Others, however, will fight hard against it. See for example, this comment (no direct link available) on the story:

Paula, since you have so much practice distorting the Word of God, it is no surprise you also mangled the First Amendment. I will try to keep this simple for you. Has Rep. Kern proposed a law respecting the establishment of religion? (Answer is no).

Well, actually, let's stop right there. Sally Kern has done nothing in public office but proposing laws respecting the establishment of religion. Specifically, as I wrote last month, she sees the entire purpose of holding public office as gaining the ability to enact statutes that enforce her religious views on the rest of the state with the force of law.

Who says so? How about The Oklahoman's rabidly right-wing editorial page?

Kern's main focus in the Legislature has been on anti-gay initiatives, such as trying to determine where libraries should place books with homosexual themes. "God's Word does not change. ... Therefore, my opinion also will not change,” she said last week.

Kern will be shown a little love today when the American Family Association holds a rally in her support at the Capitol. Perhaps constituents ought to hold a rally of their own, urging this one-trick pony to put her tiresome personal agenda aside and work to do something constructive.

When The Oklahoman editorial page sees you as a one-note gay-bashing harpy, your 15 minutes are over. But let's let "bill" continue with his misrepresentation of current events and American history:

Is the phrase "separation of church and state" in the constitution? (Answer is no.)

This is so tired as to almost not deserve response, but in case people unaccustomed to non-right-wing media stumble across this, there is simply no question that the founding fathers meant to keep religion and government separate, with neither controlling the other. As Jefferson said, "I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another." Yet this is exactly what Sally Kern is trying to do, by attempting to pass laws that enforce her religious beliefs upon all citizens of the state of Oklahoma.

(If this is too subtle for you, keep in mind that the Constitution also does not contain the phrase "No law shall declare it permissible to shoot Bill in the face," although clearly such a law would be unconstitutional.)

Bill continues:

Is religion prohibited in politics? (Answer is no.)

Of course it's not. Jefferson also said that, very plainly, in writing the "Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom" that was adopted in January 1786:

Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions…therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to the offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow citizens he has a natural right.

What "Bill" does not seem to realize is that this works in all directions. Just as Sally Kern is not disqualified from office because she is Baptist, nor are gay Oklahomans relegated to second-class or third-class status because Sally Kern believes they are sinners. Or because Bill believes they are sinners. Or because anyone believes God disapproves of gay people. You're free to believe it, but not to use your religious beliefs as the basis for laws that discriminate against people you think God doesn't like.

So, of course, "Bill" concludes with what he thinks are legitimate reasons to discriminate against people he thinks God doesn't like:

Also there are identifiable reasons to discriminate against homosexuals; they are banned from donating blood because of the danger they pose to society.

bill, Oklahoma City - Apr 2, 2008 11:38 PM

"Bill" came back later with support for this suspect claim (quotation marks in original):

"Current U.S. health regulations prohibit men who have sex with men (MSM) from donating blood. Studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) categorically confirm that if MSM were permitted to give blood, the general population would be placed at risk."

The Oklahoman commenting system doesn't seem to allow hyperlinks, so "Bill" can be forgiven for not linking to the original source for this material: conservative nutjob Matt Barber's column entitled "'Gay' Activists Risk Your Life. Tolerate It!"

Barber, who has made a career out of spewing gay-hatred, is one of the two "experts" that Sally Kern identified as "proving" that "politically active gays are part of a conspiracy to 'gain power' and 'promot[e] homoseuxality among young people.'"

"Bill," like Barber himself, failed to point out that the request to lift the ban on blood donations "from men who have had sex with men since 1977" came from the American Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks, and America's Blood Center." Why? Because everyone is vulnerable to the diseases that Barber cites, and no other group is excluded from giving blood since modern testing can catch infected blood before it enters the blood supply. Instead, as usual, Barber unleased the gay-hate that basically accuses his fellow Americans of trying to kill him, with absolutely no evidence, and "Bill" was happy to quote it, and for all I know, accept it into his heart as the word of Jesus, since he seems to believe loving Jesus is all about hating the homos.

But that's how this battle has gone for years, and will continue to go for years. Once the hate is installed, even massive doses of actual Jesus have a hard time removing it. "Bill," like Sally Kern and Matt Barber, think that their beliefs as right-wing Christians entitle them not just to freedom of speech, but the power to enact laws enforcing their beliefs on everyone else. If Sally Kern thinks God does not like gays, then by golly, the law should discriminate against them by whatever means necessary, says "Bill."

If the Baptist church says you can't get married, then so should the laws of the state of Oklahoma. Never mind if you are not Baptist, they say, because their beliefs are just "simple basic morality." (Also never mind that if someone tried to make Catholic beliefs the basis for state marriage law, they would run screaming to the First Amendment like Homer Simpson to free bacon.)

It's not about Sally Kern's "free speech" and never was. It's about her plans to make the state, and the nation, enforce her ideas that are solely based on her religious beliefs with the power of law, police, and fines. Passing laws based not on the rights of citizens, but on the religious beliefs of legislators, is the very definition of a "law respecting the establishment of religion." It is to Sally Kern's, Matt Barber's, and "Bill's" discredit that their gay hatred prohibits them from seeing this.