State Sen. Jessica Garvin is not a Republican anymore. She has joined a defunct political party from the 1850s.
That’s right. She is a perfect candidate for the long dissolved Know Nothing Party, briefly famous in America during the middle part of the 19th century. Members were mostly known for responding to any question with the words of “I know nothing.”
Freshmen Sen. Garvin proved her qualifications for membership while chairing her own interim study about the plight of women in Oklahoma based on income, personal safety, job opportunity and health care. In her opening remarks she explained abortion would not be a part of the study because, “This is a completely non-biased, bipartisan and nonpartisan study so for those of you who are wondering why we’re not addressing things like abortion, for example, that’s not what we are here for. We’re here not to discuss political sides, we’re here to discuss policy and facts and data surrounding issues that are facing women that we all can agree on.”
Well great. Probably the one thing we all can agree upon is Jessica Garvin may be the most naive female senator to come along since Sen. Carol Martin, R-Comanche, who declared that male rapists would calm down and behave after being castrated. You know, just like former bulls in the herd.
By the way, Comanche is just outside of Duncan so maybe the IQ challenge faced by these two gals, sounding like they just arrived from the 17th century, may be something in the water out there.
Or too much listening to Fox, or goobers at local cafes or Preacher Doofus Spellbinder at the local evangelical church. They all know damn well what the little women of our about-face-facing state need, want or more likely, should have.
But riding to the rescue, by engaging their brains, were such dominant and wise female leaders in Oklahoma by the names of Erica Lucas, Angela Monson and Dr. Mary Clarke, among others. They explained to Garvin that one can’t have a meaningful discussion about the health of females in our state without including the divisive and controversial subject of abortion.
Sen. Know Nothing simply said, “My constituents are heavily anti-abortion and it is my job to vote according to their values.”
Values, evidence, opinions and facts. God help us if Garvin is going to spend her 12 years in the Legislature reflecting whatever she means by “values” of “people in her district” rather than offering science, facts and data for them, and the rest of us, to consider. Her hand-picked speakers, about a dozen of them, would have none of her gibberish and spoke with eloquence, information and knowledge on a full range of subjects, leaving Garvin only to say at the end, “I knew everybody would not walk out of the meeting singing Kumbaya and that wasn’t going to happen. So, I didn’t want to waste any time addressing something that I knew going in.”
That’s right. The status of women in Oklahoma, for the most part, is abysmal regardless of how you measure it. So let’s not waste time addressing it. Men have done a great job of doing just that since statehood in 1907 and women like Garvin have been clueless accomplices during most all of that time.
I urge both males and females of thinking age to read this article written by Ari Fife of Oklahoma Watch but you may want to wait until after you’ve fully digested Thanksgiving’s delights. No reason to ruin a perfectly wonderful culinary experience.
