Okla-Okla-Okla-Okla-Okla-Okla... Oklahoma!

Brand new state!
Brand new state, gonna treat you great!
Gonna give you barley, carrots and pertaters,
Pasture fer the cattle,
Spinach and termayters!
Flowers on the prarie where the June bugs zoom,
Plen’y of air and plen’y of room,
Plen'y of room to swing a rope!
Plen’y of heart and plen’y of hope.

Or maybe not. That is if you happen to be gay or lesbian. Meet Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern everybody. According to Pam Spaulding:

“She didn’t know that she was being recorded in a meeting, so we get a nice insight about what she thinks of her gay and lesbian constituents. Perhaps she doesn’t think she has any.

About 30 seconds into this homobigoted, fact-free, BS screed, Rep. Kern actually says how she doesn’t hate gays (of course not!), then proceeds to continue on her tirade of filth.

I don’t think you need to guess which party Kern belongs to. This is a woman who sits on the Education Committee in the OK legislature. She’s also a member of Mother Schlafly’s Eagle Forum.”

Now, what happens when you get this sort of hateful, Bible-thumping wingnut sitting on the Education Committee? Why, I’m glad you asked. Behold and be... um, amazed:

The Oklahoma House of Representatives Education Committee has just approved House Bill 2211. The bill is expected to pass the full House, and then to go to the Senate. Its authors describe it as promoting freedom of religion in the public schools. In fact, it does the opposite.

The bill requires public schools to guarantee students the right to express their religious viewpoints in a public forum, in class, in homework and in other ways without being penalized. If a student’s religious beliefs were in conflict with scientific theory, and the student chose to express those beliefs rather than explain the theory in response to an exam question, the student’s incorrect response would be deemed satisfactory, according to this bill.

The school would be required to reward the student with a good grade, or be considered in violation of the law. Even simple, factual information such as the age of the earth (4.65 billion years) would be subject to the student’s belief, and if the student answered 6,000 years based on his or her religious belief, the school would have to credit it as correct. Science education becomes absurd under such a situation.

To, the next person who asks why I’m so adamantly opposed to religion (Coffee… are you listening?) please simply refer to this post.

h/t: Dave (again!)