‘Put some sunlight on it’

Oklahoma congressman is pro-choice—depending what you’re choosing

Sometimes the future is as troubling as the past. In May, 2012, U.S. Rep. James Lankford was asked by two reporters from Think Progress, Annie-Rose Strasser and Scott Keyes, about homosexuality and discrimination¹.

Strasser: Would you support a law that says you can’t fire someone for their sexual orientation? 

Keyes: Similar to protections for people on race or gender?

Lankford: Well, you’re now dealing with behavior and I’m trying to figure out exactly what you’re trying to mean by that. Because you’re dealing with — race and sexual preferences are two different things. One is a behavior-related and preference-related and one is something inherently — skin color, something obvious, that kind of stuff. You don’t walk up to someone on the street and look at them and say, “Gay or straight?”

Keyes: But you think that even if you can’t see they’re that way, you don’t think someone is born gay necessarily?

Lankford: Do I personally? No. I don’t. I think it’s a choice issue. Are tendencies and such? Yes. But I think it’s a choice issue.

Why bring this up? Because on November 4, 2014—unless, the rapture comes on November 3 as mentioned during our last episode (Sept-A “It ain’t so, Joe”), leaving only Democrats to vote—your next U.S. Senator, Republican Congressman James Lankford, will be someone who believes homosexuality is a choice.

Come join the exciting world of gay!

• An Oklahoma GOP candidate believes  “we would be totally in the right” to execute gays by stoning them²

• A Christian pastor wants a constitutional amendment to make the “practice of homosexuality … punishable by ten years in prison at hard labor.”³

• The Texas GOP platform supports restorative or conversion therapy, a debunked practice (Marcus Bachmann, line one!) aimed at turning homosexuals straight.⁴

Of course, congressman, people choose to be gay. All that love and support, why wouldn’t they? They even get a parade! 

Meanwhile …

The American Psychological Association concluded, “Most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.”⁵

And …

The American Medical Association “opposes, the use of “reparative” or “conversion” therapy that is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that the patient should change his/her homosexual orientation.⁶

And not for nothing …

There are approximately 9-million homosexuals in America, and none chose to be gay because Cam and Mitchell on “Modern Family” seem like so much fun.

But Lankford, a camp director⁷ before coming to congress, believes they did. Although he doesn’t explicitly state it until a later TV news interview, Lankford’s response gives the impression that LGBT preference-based behavior would not necessarily deserve the legal protections afforded by those with “skin color, something obvious, that kind of stuff.” 

That kind of stuff?

The mind, she boggles.

What if Lankford were asked if those who chose to follow Christ—because nobody is born born-again—should receive legal protections from discrimination?  

He’d cough up a spleen coming to their defense.

“I have always respected our founders’ straightforward insistence that the freedom to practice any religion or no religion should be protected.”⁸

So you’re for protection? Go on.

“So, for me, the primary thing boils down to the simple task of ‘Follow Me’ …  So I feel like I am doing the same thing now I was doing five years ago in ministry, and that is I am still following Christ in what I am doing.”⁹

Sure sounds like a man who made a choice that defines his life—which is remarkably similar to his take on homosexuality.

The congressman’s pious slant continued, though, the day after the 2012 interview, when, on Oklahoma City’s KWTV Channel 9¹⁰, Lankford complained the Think Progress interview was an ambush, but explicitly stated his view that LGBT people should not receive workplace protections, and blamed President Obama (of course) for—who knows, something. Anchor Stan Miller then, doing his best Rexella Van Impe¹¹ impersonation, asked Lankford if he thought he was singled out because he was Christian.

Lankford said he didn’t know, but—yes, that’s exactly what he thought. 

What a prince, huh?

The following year, in January 2013, at a town hall meeting, Lankford promised to use “the power of humiliation”¹² to undermine a substance abuse and mental health program, for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. “They love functioning in the dark,” Lankford said. Agreeing with a constituent who blamed the program for pushing a “homosexual agenda” and “indoctrinating our citizens,” he said, “You put some sunlight on it, that does help.”

As for same-sex marriage, the congressman said he “prays for our nation as we process this change in our deeply rooted value of marriage.”¹³

Homosexuality, congressman: not a choice, not propaganda, not lurking in the dark, not something from which we need God to protect us.

Human. Beings.

Ladies and gentlemen, your next United States senator. 

1 ThinkProgress.org: GOP Rep. Lankford Explains Why It Should Be Legal To Fire Someone For Being Gay: ‘It’s A Choice Issue’

2 PoliticsUSA.com: Oklahoma Republican Believes Homosexuals Should Be Stoned To Death

3 TheImmoralMinority.blogspot.com: Conservative pastor calls for a constitutional amendment that would criminalize homosexuality.

4 CNN.com: Texas Republicans favor ‘reparative therapy’ platform for gays

5 The New York Times: Pediatrics Group Backs Gay Marriage, Saying It Helps Children

6 CLGS.org: Official Statement Concerning Homosexuality from the American Medical Association

7 ChristianPost.com: James Lankford Interview, Part 2: How Youth Pastoring is Like Being in Congress

8 TulsaToday.com: Lankford: Religious Freedom Day longs for free exercise

9 Lankford.House.gov: Baptist Press: Rep. Lankford (SBC) elected to No. 5 GOP post

10 NewsOn6.com: Oklahoma Rep. James Lankford under fire for comments on sexual orientation 

11 JVIM.com: Jack Van Impe Ministries

12  ThinkProgress.org: Republican House Leader Vows To Use ‘Power Of Humiliation’ To Undermine LGBT Program

13 Lankford.house.gov: Lankford Disappointed by Supreme Court’s Mixed Message on Marriage