Oklahoma Baptists: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Ninth Commandment!

Written by Jim Burroway Thursday, 23 July 2009 08:36

Last month, Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern issued her loopy “Proclamation for Morality” that blamed gays (among others) for our economic crisis and held that the United States was created for Christians and Christians only. That was bad enough, but an Oklahoma-based newspaper, The Baptist Messenger, decided to take it a step further by making it official — or at least official looking:

Yep. The Baptist Messenger — an established weekly newspaper with a paid circulation of over 85,000 —- decided to photoshop Governor Henry’s signature on the embarrassing and archaic “Proclamation for Morality.” And to try and make the piece of right wing trash look even more legitimate, they placed the text of proclamation onto Executive Department letterhead and forged the signature of Secretary of State M. Susan Savage next to the state seal of Oklahoma.

The Lost Ogle blog has the complete scan of the proclamation. Having suspended the ninth commandment (or the eight commandment if you use the Catholic/Lutheran method of counting), The Baptist Messenger tried to make amends by offering their non-apology apology with a message from the editor posted to their web site’s front page:

In the July 16 Messenger, the graphic representation of the Oklahoma Citizen’s Proclamation for Morality was misleading, indicating that Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry and Secretary of State Susan Savage had signed the document. This is not the case, and the Messenger staff apologizes for the oversight and error.

Hunting around for two fraudulent signatures, a fake letterhead and an legible image of seal of the State of Oklahoma, don’t accidentally get attached to a loopy proclamation because of an “oversight and error.” Their apology is about as misleading as the Photoshopped proclamation. It’s about as credible as well.

Read the original article at Box Turtle Bulletin