Unfortunately, “I would guess that this is less a party affiliitation matter and more a matter of religious affiliation and local culture” is not quite true. While there are many, many broad-minded Republicans who take offense at comments by the likes of Sally Kern, there is still a reason that the Democratic Party attracts a broader diversity of people than the Republican Party. Especially when Republican presidential candidates campaign at universities that are right wing or perhaps unwelcoming of blacks, etc. Let's not forget the Bush strategy of “us versus them” and “you're either with us or against us” during the 2004 campaign when he brought up the gay marriage issue to divide the country and deny gays the rights to marry. (As far as I'm concerned any state-conferred benefit bestowed upon married couples should be recognized by civil unions, of which gays should be able to participate. Any religious aspect/benefit should be left to individual religions. If someone disagrees with a certain religion, they are free to fight for change within that religion or break off and form their own church or to leave that religion altogether. It's not the state's place to meddle with religion in this country.)

Obama denounced (and rejected) Farrakhan's endorsement whereas McCain seems to welcome the endorsement of that despicable Hagee. McCain justifies it by cherry-picking, saying he doesn't like or agree with all of Hagee's positions but he will take his support. I would expect someone as a leader to be more forceful in denouncing the hatred that Hagee spouts and to denounce Hagee. Anything less should not be tolerated.

The telling thing she did, and something a lot of the right does before they slam a minority, is to qualify what they say with something along the lines of “I'm not trying to be offensive here” then launch into a narrowminded tirade thats pretty damn offensive. She really doesn't think what she's saying is wrong, and thats the crazy part to me. Its why the GOP can't hold onto anything other than white christians.

See maps.

http://artsci.wustl.edu/~landc/html/webb/

The Front Range (of Colorado) is an exception; even though there are hard-core pockets of Religious Right activity there, there's also much more, much more conventional population there. Not that the other communities are all like Boulder, but they aren't all like parts of Colorado Springs, say, or elsewhere (where I've seen prayer sessions before eating even in places like Burger King).

It is. This is an area where “Dr. Laura” Schlessinger's radio show can still be heard. (At one time it was actually still being played in Washington, DC metro years after the nude photo scandal that did her in among all but the faithful, but I consider the DC retention to be a fluke.)

Hearby hangs a pair of tales to tell.

* * *

I've lived and traveled all over the USA (and much of Canada) and that includes a lot of trips in and out of St. Louis through Oklahoma (either to or from the West Coast or to or from Texas). The Ozarks southwest of St. Louis form the edge of the Bible Belt about 100 miles outside St. Louis, and by the time you get past Springfield and Joplin and all the way to Tulsa, it's an order of magnitude harder core. The strongest part of the Bible Belt in the area lies in Oklahoma's eastern (humid) side, which extends all the way west to Oklahoma City. (When I went to Texas I would go through OKC and down through DFW and Waco — ahem — to Austin or even San Antonio. 900+ miles but worth it. For a change I'd head through Texarkana and Little Rock to Memphis and back to STL, 1000+ day trip instead.)

Oklahoma City itself not only is a center of Religious Right hard-core activity but is also, you will recall, the site of the nation's worst terrorist attack prior to 9-11, a far right terrorist attack (by Timothy McVeigh). J-Sat can probably recall that the bombed building or parts of it complete with dolls and flowers left there in sympathy remain as they were right after the bombing, as a memorial site.

* * *

Ironically, given that relocation of the federal capital makes sense because this nation is not merely an East Coast nation, if you examine the population migration as well as growth characteristics as I did several years ago, you will find that the logical site for relocation isn't only much farther west, but south as well. It is, in fact, Oklahoma City. That is, if we were planning to seat the capital around where the nation's mean center of population would be located by the year 2100 if trends since World War II continue, which is reasonable to expect that they will.

If we don't want to plan for the future, relocation should still be on the boundary between East and West, and needn't be on the climatic boundary (approximately the 98th meridian — thank you, William Prescott Webb) but at the edge between the Great Plains states and the states east of there. This happens to be where the original “jump-off” point for western settlement was, which consist of an older and a newer place. The first is Kansas City-Independence (i.e., we'd relocate the nation's capital to Kansas City), and the other is Omaha-Council Bluffs. The latter would be better if one day we annexed part or all of Canada. But if we wanted to plan for the future and where the population will be redistributed a century from now, then the capital belongs in Oklahoma City. It's nearly on the 98th meridian, right at the edge of the humid East vs. arid West (as anyone going west of OKC will quickly note with stunting and infrequency, then the vanishing, of trees). Yep, hard-core Bible Belt and vicious storms in springtime. It's perfect medicine for arrogant, conceited “bi-coastal” elites. (But at least it's not located in Texas.)

Does anyone else feel as though, if we're working so hard at making sure we don't use race or gender to cloud our choice in the Dem. presidential nomination, the least we could do is spend more time on the general topic of how these differences have nothing to do with a human's basic rights and humanity?

They don't want to keep it at a distance. They just don't want people outside of the states where this kind of hatred is acceptable to know how much this kind of thing is a part of the Republican Party. Look at the areas where their strength lies. Many of them think this way. Like it or not, that's the way this really works for them.

When a flap arose about someone in Obama's staff who is also anti-gay, I thought he handled it very well, with a :hate the sin (bigotry ) not the sinner/ (bigot) attitude. .

Of course, i'ts legitimate to compare how political parties and individual politicians embrace or counteract this kind of bigotry It's good that incidents such as this are brought to light, so that we know what we are dealing with 'Out htere.
A whole lot of eucation needs to take place, apparently.

The local TV Poll asked:

Do you think Rep. Kern should publicly apologize for her comments?

Here are the results so far.

Yes. 42%
No. 57%

* * *

Here's 562 comments from mostly local Oklahomans : http://www.topix.net/forum/source/kwtv/TSG5B8P3...

I read about ten comments and then had to stop…

I am so glad that I live in an open-minded part of the country and feel sorrow and sadness for these people before the disgust sets in.