OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – A judge says new anti-discrimination language proposed for the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct are not proper and serve to promote a “homosexual agenda.”

District Judge Bill Graves wrote a letter to an Oklahoma Bar Association committee criticizing the suggested changes in the code. These changes are along the lines of wording in the American Bar Association code.

“These policies are not based on laws enacted by Congress or the State Legislature, but on proposals of the liberal, pro-homosexual American Bar Association,” Graves said.

He specifically objects to a proposed rule prohibiting judges from holding membership in organizations that discriminate on the basis of race, age, sex, gender, religion, national origin, ethnicity or sexual orientation.”

Graves said the proposal promotes a “homosexual agenda which is to have homosexuality treated as normal and natural as heterosexuality. These are cultural, moral and political issues that should be reserved to the Legislative branch.”

He also said the new proposal could forbid judges from refusing to award children in custody and adoption cases because a person is homosexual.

“Studies have shown that is detrimental to children,” he wrote.

Arizona attorney Mark Harrison who headed the American Bar Association committee that came up with the model code of conduct, denied Graves’ suggestion the group is trying to advance an agenda.

He said the anti-discrimination provision won unanimous support from a diverse group of judges, lawyers and academics.

The national lawyers group provided the model for Oklahoma’s revised code of conduct for judges, said John Morris Williams, executive director of the Oklahoma Bar Association.

“Certainly, it’s not the finished product,” Williams said. “It could change dramatically.”

Any changes to Oklahoma’s conduct rules for judges must be approved by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which passed the original code of conduct in 1974.

Williams acknowledged the proposal has drawn some complaints, with some critics invited to testify before the committee.

Attorney Kevin Calvey, a former state representative, said he spoke to the committee in April about what he termed a First Amendment issue.

He called the new anti-discrimination measure “by far the worst public policy proposal I’ve ever seen.”