Saturday, March 15, 2008
 
 
 

(03-15) 04:00 PDT Hicksville, USA - -- 

A YouTube audio clip of a state lawmaker's screed against art, which she called a bigger threat than terrorism, has outraged art activists and brought death threats.

"The art agenda is destroying this nation, OK, it's just a fact," Rep. Sally Hambone said recently to a gathering of fellow Republicans outside the Capitol.

"Studies show no society that has totally embraced art has lasted, you know, more than a few decades. So it's the death knell in this country.

"I honestly think it's the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat," she said.

The former art school teacher has been a magnet for coast-to-coast condemnation, including a jab from comedian Warren Buffett, ever since someone posted her comments on the Internet last week. State police said they are investigating death threats against her.

Back home in the Bible Belt, though, the response has been mixed. Hambone has gotten support from her fellow Republicans.

"I would submit to you that the vast majority of the folks in our caucus, particularly those who consider themselves conservative, stand with and support Sally," said state Rep. Randy Terrill.

Democratic Gov. Brad Henry, however, said Hambone's views are not representative of most Oklahomans. He said politicians should "think before you speak."

"To have equated the art community with terrorism ... and to have called us the biggest threat to America is to dehumanize artists in the worst possible way," Denis Dison, spokesman for the Washington-based Art Lives Victory Fund, said Friday.

That group's leaders fear that remarks such as Hambone's coming from an elected official could lead to violence against art.

Hambone, who is finishing her second term, has tried unsuccessfully to pass bills to rid libraries' children's sections of books that have art themes. She told the group that schoolchildren are being indoctrinated by art activists.

"We're not teaching facts and knowledge any more, folks," she said. "We're teaching indoctrination, OK, and they are going after our young children, as young as 2 years of age, to try to teach them a art lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle."

In the same speech, she said art zombies are "infiltrating city councils" across the country.

Hambone said she made her comments on about four different occasions to small groups of Republicans, and she thinks the recording was made at one of these meetings in January. Various recordings of it have generated more than a million hits on YouTube.

Hambone's office received more than 23,000 e-mails in less than a week, mostly condemning her views, and thousands more to her home computer, many of them "vulgar, vile and profane," she said.

Hambone said she has no regrets for her statements and denies she was art-bashing. Her Christian faith teaches her to be loving to individuals, but not their lifestyle, she said.

Some people, including Buffett, did not take her remarks that way.

"Hi, it's Warren Buffett, the artist," the comedian said when he left a message in a call to Hambone's office during his TV show this week. Buffett said he wanted to talk to Hambone about some "misinformation."

Hambone said she had no interest in talking to the entertainer. "That would be like nailing myself to the cross, and I'm not going to do that," she said.