The Journal Record covers only business and legislation. It is not within our purview to tackle the many questions of faith raised by Kern’s words.

We shall leave it to the theologians to argue theology.

We won’t make an argument here in favor of the separation of church and state and Kern’s repetitive efforts to commingle the two. We won’t criticize Kern’s belief system or her right to express her beliefs; freedom of speech and religion are dear to our hearts.

But we will argue that Kern is harming Oklahoma’s economic development efforts and that her credibility as a legislator is so eroded that even her home district constituents must be looking at her performance askance.

Kern claimed 149 signatures on her petition that belonged, according to a House press release, to business, political and religious leaders. We asked who signed the proclamation, but were told there was no list and that the signatures were not legible. We did not see anyone we would label a religious, political or business leader at the signing ceremony and we think that if Kern is going to claim high-profile support of her position she should make public the names and positions of those 149 people.

We take strong exception to the title, Oklahoma Citizen’s Proclamation for Morality. There are more than 149 citizens and the other 3.5 million didn’t sign it.

More importantly, we ask Kern to stop providing fodder for late-night talk show hosts, comedians and bloggers to publicly humiliate our state from a national platform. Since Kern first distributed a press release describing the proclamation, our state Legislature has been called “a petri dish for wingnuttery” and worse.

Our Department of Commerce and Tourism and our local chambers of commerce and convention and visitors bureaus struggle daily to attract and retain the nation’s most prestigious employers, to fill convention halls and hotel rooms and to retain our most talented college graduates. They already are competing against 49 other states and it is a much tougher sale when the prospect starts out with a perception of our state as a haven for those who force their personal beliefs on all. The inherent ignorance of such a position not only makes our state undesirable, it makes us, as the talk show hosts have demonstrated, a laughingstock.

Kern, you are damaging our credibility and you are inhibiting our state’s ability to conduct business. We cannot undo the damage you have already done, but for the good of our state, you must stop embarrassing us.