Sally Kern, left, and Justin Thompson
The competition for today’s honor is pretty intense, and in the end we couldn’t make up our minds. So we’re turning to you to decide this toss-up between the undisputed heavyweight bigot from up north, Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern, and a fiery young challenger from the south, Texas A&M University student Justin Thompson.
Let’s start with the familiar Kern, who on Wednesday said that minorities earn less than white people because they don’t work as hard and don’t have as much initiative, according to the Tulsa World. Kern made her comments during debate on a proposed constitutional amendment to ban affirmative action in state government.
“We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school?” Kern said. “I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.”
And now for the newcomer, Thompson, who penned a guest column for the Battallion, the student newspaper at Texas A&M, in support of a bill to slash funding for the school’s LGBT resource center. Here’s a snippet from Thompson’s column:
“I do not hate homosexuals; their lifestyle is offensive and against my beliefs. I feel the same about extramarital sex and similar actions common today. All are a misuse of a gift from God. Sex is not about recreation or either of the two participants; it is about an attempt to create new life. Sex that has no possibility of conception is wrong because it deprives a person at a chance at life. Extramarital and homosexual sex is selfish and reprehensible because they put the participants first at the expense of the most vulnerable. …
“I know that many have homosexual tendencies that may or may not be natural. Even if they are, that does not excuse acting them out. I can have innate feelings for a married woman, but that does not excuse adultery. We are not animals, dominated by instinct. We have free will and, to some extent, self-discipline. It is our instinct to sleep until the sun wakes us, but we set our alarms and go to class in the morning. We diet, exercise, take medicine and do a multitude of things that are against our instincts. Sometimes, doing the right thing takes effort and goes against what we want to do. I sympathize with those fighting the temptation; I know it is a long, hard struggle.”
So, who should take home today’s Bigot of the Day prize? You decide, and let us know in the comments.
Wow! Justin Thompson has major issues!!!! I guess straight, married couples should never have sex with a condom or use birth control, too! I love how he starts with how he doesn’t hate homosexuals, but then goes on a tirade against us using such words as “reprehensible,” “offensive,” and “wrong.”
Both are reprehensible but Sally Kern still holds the crown, hands down!!
Sally has it hands down…someone needs to drop her into a working class minority neighborhood before she talks shit about something she doesn’t know.
I would vote for Thompson. Sally Kern is lost to the world. She has no chance at redemption, Justin needs to be educated or he will join Sally in the vacuum of no redemption.
They’re both worthy of bigot of the year, much less of the day. I would have to give the nod to the (not so) honerable Rep. Keens. She is an elected official and de-facto role model. They are both idiots & should not be allowed out in public.
Justin Thompson is very obviously a raging queen. Sally Kern has no excuse.
Sally Kern takes the cake. Justin Thompson just sounds like a closet case to me!
Although both of them are bad and I agree Justin is obviously in the closet with a self-loathing disposition, I have to nominate someone from my work. He is an Afro-American Baptist minister and couldn’t understand why I was upset when he used the term faggot to describe a gay man. When I confronted him about it he told me it was just man talk. Not only does this not make any sense but it is sexist and all I could get out of it is that he doesn’t understand that gay men are really gay MEN.
With teachers like Sally, I pity our youth. Justin will never know love if he believe it is based solely on sex. Both are sad excuses for humans. Further proof that we are a nation of idiots.
So, I guess we’re going to eventually have a “coming out” party for Justin and perhaps we should be good southern neighbors and wash Sally’s white sheet’s before the weekend gets here. She’ll need something to wear. It’s about loving thy neighbor, right?
I live in Oklahoma City, just out of her district by a few blocks. If I lived in it, I would sell and move. She is whacked, walks into the capitol with a gun, with no reprimand! Was a teacher, is a preachers wife, and now a Rep. that keeps getting re-elected! She gets the crown!
He’s just a self hating closet case!
You go “christians”!
Put them in a boxing ring,and let them fight it out.
Well, I guess if you find Justin to be a bigot, you ought to find the Pope, Mother Theresa, and all conservative Catholics (including myself) bigots, too. All he was doing was standing up for his beliefs after being bombarded for three days with student media articles that advanced beliefs ideas and beliefs that contradicted his own. He has a right to his side of the story.
With respect,
Justin’s loving girlfriend
@MelG
If you’re asking us to go there, then yes, I consider the Pope a bigot. I’d need to read more about Mother Theresa’s attitudes towards gays to say anything conclusive about her, but someone can be proudly supportive of one disenfranchised group and bigoted towards another – these are not mutually exclusive. I don’t want to paint all conservative Catholics as bigots, either – queer theory teaches us that there are always deviations within a supposedly homogeneous group.
Justin _is_ a bigot, plain and simple. He has a right to his side of the story, but his side of the story is wrong. It is contradicted by studies in psychology, biology, zoology, and by faiths and creeds not his own. The reason he was bombarded was not because anyone hates him (although he obviously wants to play the martyr here, speaking of selfish behavior), but because he is not in the right. We don’t necessarily begrudge him his opinion, but his opinion is followed by desire and action to take away from a historically disenfranchised group. He’s not saying, “Let’s have a traditional family values center in addition to GLBTQ center, in order to balance the scales” (ignoring the fact that A&M is already extremely hetero-friendly). He’s saying, “I personally find this type of person icky, so despite the fact that this type of person has been regularly physically and verbally abused on campus, sometimes to the point of being hospitalized, and off-campus, to the point of death, I’m going to take away from this person one of his or her or hir few resources here to try and live like anyone else.” His version of “standing up for his beliefs” takes away from others who are consenting adults – not animals, not pedophiles, not sinners – just consenting adults, and yes, I call that bigotry.
This is a tough choice, however, it is easier to tolerate youth with no real experience in life. Maybe he will learn, that if there is a God, she would love all of us, regardless of what those men who wrote the bible think. As for Sally Kern, it is sad that someone so bigoted, narrow minded and plain ole mean spirited has a position of authority and actually taught children. Maybe she should try climbing down from her pedestal and doing some of the backbreaking work for little pay that minorities perform trying to survive in our all to frequently puritanical, paternalistic country.
@MelG If you & Justin end up getting married are you expecting to not have sexual relations except when you are ovulating? Going by his stance, that would seem the appropriate thought to follow his rant.
Dear Justin’s Loving Beard,
Based on what you’ve written elsewhere, yeah, you’re a bigot. And if a conservative Catholic calls me selfish and reprehensible, then, yes, I suppose I’d call them a bigot, too.
Congrats, you got this one right!
Best,
Justin’s Temptation