Since others are in the business of controversy, I thought I'd give it a try. Of course today would be a slow news day. The AJC had three sections today and the lead story was a commuter car-pool story (not a whole lot controversy on people trying to make the world a better place). Even Cnn had a hard time coming up with news. Luckily, they are resourceful.

They carried a story on a (R) representative who was speaking her mind about "gay lifestyle" and got caught on tape. The weak part of the story is that she is not a US Representative, she is a state representative from Oklahoma. Obviously nothing happening in any of the campaign states so I guess Cnn had to get creative...

The fun controversial part is that she compares gays to terr*ists. It is odd actually to think of gays as terr*ists, pretty big stretch.

The story states: She was invited to a meeting with other (R)'s and vocalized her opinions on the gay lifestyle. What she didn't know was that someone in the room had hidden a digital recorder. She was very outspoken on the topic to the point of calling gays terr*ists. Someone took the hidden recording and turned it into a UTube broadcast. There are people in the UTube broadcast holding up signs saying "I'm listening." One of the local gay & lesbian local organization is calling for her apology. She rebuts that she was vocalizing her beliefs as a Christian, they are not necessarily her legislative beliefs. She also states that it is her first amendment right to freedom of speech. She will not apologize.

There are several big issues with this story: privacy, separation of church and state and freedom of expression. I pick a combo first amendment rights, then maybe separation of church and state:

I take issue with calling anyone a terr*ist who is not a proven terr*ist, as in innocent until proven guilty or on the most wanted list. To me, this is not a freedom of speech (or expression) rather slander. If they write it down, it is libel. It is in the same realm of someone calling me a witch when I am not a witch. It goes directly to character of a person. Slander is name calling. Name calling is abuse. Abuse is illegal. Just like we are not allowed to hit people, we are not allowed to hit them with our words either.

Labeling an entire group of people as one is a generalization. So now, instead of slandering one person, an entire group of people got hit. So this woman, Rep. Sally Kern of the Oklahoma House, hit not one person with abuse, but millions with her statement as a result of the broadcast. (It's apparent to me that she hit one person initially so that they knew she would do it again. They caught her in a trap for opening her trap! Not so sure that ruining a person's career in politics was the best method of stopping the abuse, but that is not my controversy of the day.)

I am not arguing on whether on the gay lifestyle is Christian or not-Christian, but calling gays terr*ists is definitely not Christian. I learned when I was little not to call my little brother stupid--wasn't even baptized yet. So I am pretty sure that if Christ were to walk in right now, he would never say that the gays are terr*ists. My guess is that he wouldn't call anyone names for that matter.

Watching the story again, she says they act like terr*ists, scooping up children when they are two and three. This simile is still slander. It is still name calling and I am not getting yanked off my soapbox by a technicality.

If there is anything I have learned from the West Wing, it is all about what you say. Word choice is key to the message. My guess--strictly a guess--is that her real message is that she believes the gay lifestyle is not in accordance with her religious beliefs, her Christian beliefs. She also detaches them from her legislative duties.

This is the hard part, but I really get it.

She has personal beliefs, that mind you are poorly expressed, that do not affect the way she wants to legislate. I wish this were true more often.

I am a big believer that gay, straight, bi-sexual, tri-sexual, should have the right to be married. (Breathe...Watch the anger, stay focused on the debate not the emotion.) The reason I feel this way is because to me marriage is a spiritual thing not a legal thing. I think either the gov't should get out of the marriage business; or if it is going to be in the marriage business, make sure they are getting the maximum profit off of it. While I am all about this section of gov't being smaller, the CPA part of me says show me the money. I also recognize that it is really up to each individual religion to interpret what is and is not in its parameters. Let the religions moralize/demoralize the members of its body. Let the gov't mind its own business: governing.

This leads me into the complex part (separation of church and state): what happens when our religious selves want to govern? What happens when there is someone like Mrs. Kern who has strong spiritual beliefs who wants to govern. She is totally influenced in her legislative decision making by her religion. What if she were Mu$lim or Jew!sh? What if she were H!nd! or Budd!st? What if she were a witch, m0rm0n or atheist? So how do we take the religion out of the legislator? My only hope is that she will [and like I try to as well (although I limited in knowledge)], lean on the Constitution to help her draw those lines. I think that one can lean, I think it is hard. Someone would have to be extremely well versed in law making, state constitutional law and US Constitutional law. This is hard to find in legislators because we can only elect those who run. Obviously, Mrs. Kern was elected, she vocalized her opinion to other people in her party who get people elected and/or might have been other legislators which means she was influencing others. I know one thing is for sure for me, I don't want Mrs. Kern's religion (whatever it may be) governing me. I feel safe in saying that Mrs. Kern doesn't want my religion governing her either!

So I feel controversial today, how bout you?