Thursday, January 26, 2012

Oklahoma GOP Lawmaker Wants To Ban Using Aborted Fetuses as Flavor Enhancer in Human Food. WTF?


Yes folks. Just when you thought the GOP could not get any crazier, its ignorance and paranoia have reached new heights.  Oklahoma State Senator, Ralph Shortey, has introduced a bill into the Oklahoma State Legislature banning the use of aborted human fetuses in the production of food for human consumption. Yes that's right-- the inmates are now officially running the asylum.

Just in case you forgot how crazy things are in Oklahoma, that's the place where last year they seriously tried to pass a bill banning the institution of Sharia Law and where every small, jerkwater town has at least ten fundamentalist Christian churches vying with each other for confusing ignorance with religious faith.  This is the place where people still think our President is from Kenya and where domestic terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, blew up the Federal Building in 1995.  So I'm not surprised that this is also the place where a clown like Shortey could be taken seriously.

Shortey introduced the bill based on something he read on the internet ( we know everything you read online is true, right?) and voila-- he has become a celebrity himself.  From TPM to HuffPo, proud Birther and illegal immigration foe, Shortey is the talk of the blogosphere.  The Huffington Post  article offers a pithy Shortey quote that explains it all ( go read the whole piece for an in depth view)
“People are thinking that this has to do with fetuses being chopped up and put in our burritos,” Shortey told NewsOK. "“That's not the case. It's beyond that.
“There are companies that are using embryonic stem cells to research and basically cause a chemical reaction to determine whether or not something tastes good or not,” he said. “As a pro-life advocate, it kind of disturbed me that we would use aborted embryos or aborted human fetuses to extract stem cells and use them for research to basically make things taste better.”
Why am I not surprised that the bill has no co-sponsors.  I wonder how long it is going to take Shortey to figure out what a fool he has made of himself introducing a bill  based on a bit of online fiction?  I'm thinking a long long time since he probably thinks he is doing God's work.  Wonder what God thinks?

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Maybe he read Bree's hubs :)

Letsgetreal said...

I live in Oklahoma. I find this mentality to be common place here.

Something about these Christians that hate, spread fear and deny science.

I think it's called, "Dangerous."

Religion in politics in this state is rampant!

But the sheeple keep electing these dangerous people.

JamaGenie said...

"Oklahoma! Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains..." That wind, unfortunately, has not cleansed the landscape down here of religious wingnuts masquerading as "legislators" from coming up with ridiculous bills to outlaw things that aren't happening, never have happened, and NEVER will.

Saw this yokel on the local news last night (which to their credit, the anchors basically poo-pooed the bill as a waste of legislative floor time). Storey is NOT the sharpest crayon in the box by any stretch of the imagination.

As you probably deduced from the photo, he also hasn't missed many (if ANY) meals, so we shouldn't be surprised he'd be the one to introduce a bill related to food AND aborted fetuses in one fell swoop.

Oklahoma, btw, is toward (if not AT) the bottom of the pile for quality of public education, but shares the #1 spot with Kansas and Texas for "How To Make Our State Look Stoopid In the National News...AGAIN".

Pajmo said...

Where the hell am I supposed to get my Soylent Green if this passes?

JamaGenie said...

Not in Oklahoma, that's for sure. lol! But don't worry, it won't pass.

Now a apology and an addition. 1) the OK legislator's last name is SHORTEY, not Storey, and 2) this bill is thought to be nothing more than a sneaky effort to open the door to banning stem cell research IN OKLAHOMA.

Unknown said...

Thanks for all the really great comments-- especially interested in that last nugget from Jamagenie about the bill being a ploy to stop stemcell research. If that is the case, then Storey is either corrupt, stupid or both.

JamaGenie said...

I don't think he's stupid, only another overzealous religious wingnut trying to impose his beliefs on the rest of us. I think his statement to the LA Times (while escorting a church youth group to Austin TX no less!) says it all: “This wasn’t an open invitation for the country to chime in. This was an invitation to my colleagues to have this discussion.”

Really, Ralph? With the media looking at Rethugs under a microscope these days, you really thought an wayyyy out there woowoo bill dreamed up by a state senator from down here in Baptist Central WOULDN'T get national coverage?

btw, I think OK voters got it right the first time around when Shortey was defeated in the regular primary in Summer '10. If not for the run-off election that came after, he'd still be a working as a "gas and oil production consultant" (whatever THAT is).

Unknown said...

Hope Shortey will soon be out of office-- thanks for all the extra insights on him AND on the voters of Oklahoma