While at Oklahoma State University, he was in the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps from 1962 to 1964.
[1] He was a general attorney of the Federal Trade Commission, Division of Compliance, Bureau of Deceptive Practices from 1969 to 1970.
On January 14, 2014, Kern held that the Oklahoma Constitution's definition of marriage as limited to "the union of one man and one woman" violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The suit, Bishop v. Oklahoma, had been filed by two lesbian couples against the Tulsa County Clerk and others.
[2] The amendment banning same-sex marriage was passed by the voters in 2004, and its legislative history was cited in the ruling.