Chris Buttars

• David Weigel @ Slate: Herman Cain, the pizza magnate who would be president.
• Joe.My.God: GOP State Sen. Chris Buttars Wants To Repeal Anti-Bullying Rules.
• Steve Benen: Getting to Know Darrell Issa.
• Warren Throckmorton: Oh, so that’s why Bryan Fischer says the darndest things!
• Eric Lach @ TPM: New Alabama Governor: Only Christians Are My Brothers And Sisters.
• John Fea: An Evangelical Pastor Gets a History Lesson.

• Ten Commandments judge Roy Moore finished fourth in Alabama's Republican primary for Governor.
• Anti-gay Utah State Sen. Chris Buttars had heart surgery, but expects to return to work after the summer.
• CBN's David Brody profiles Andrew Breitbart.
• BOND's Jesse Lee Peterson was tossed out of a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting for protesting the Board's decision to boycott Arizona over the state's immigration law.
• Randall Terry reports that his television program is being picked up by more carriers.
• Why does Politico keep giving Gary Bauer space to place these sorts of moronic op-eds?
• CWA's Penny Nance calls investigative reporter Joe McGinniss, who moved in next to Sarah Palin, a "peeping tom."
• Finally, if you are going to claim that your father "died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany," it is your fault when people mistakenly think you meant he died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany instead of ten years after World War II ended in California.

• Think Progress: Time to Stop the Lies - Countering Bishop Harry Jackson’s Gay Marriage Distortions.
• Towelroad: Houston Mayoral Candidate Annise Parker Attacked with Anti-Gay Flyer; Warns of City Run by Someone 'Trapped in Homosexual Behavior' and Utah Homophobe Senator Chris Buttars Doesn't Want Gays 'Stuffin' It Down His Throat All The Time'.
• TPM: Doug Hoffman: ACORN Has Stolen NY-23 Election!
• Joe.My.God: AFA: Gap Stores Support Witchcraft!!!
• What do you know? Fox News apologizes again.
• Bonus what do you know? Mike Huckabee slams knee-jerk attacks on Obama.
• Finally, Kevin Drum explains Sarah Plain via Jon Stewart.

Yesterday, I wrote a post about Utah state Senator Chris Buttars' refusal to believe that gays suffer discrimination and his threat to introduce legislation that would override any effort by Salt Lake City to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance.

The Deseret News has followed-up on Buttars' claim and just check out his utterly ridiculous explanation:

Sen. Chris Buttars has his eyes on Salt Lake City's proposed anti-discrimination law and the state lawmaker says he would likely take action to quash the ordinance should the City Council approve it.

"I don't think anybody should be discriminated against," said Buttars, R-West Jordan. "But in America, we have never given special privilege or protection to little groups. We give them to the entire nation."

Salt Lake Mayor Ralph Becker said he was "committed to eradicating discrimination in our city" last month as he unveiled the ordinance aimed at providing fair housing and employment protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents.

Buttars, however, said the LGBT community doesn't fall under the same protective umbrella as race, age and religion, which "affect everybody."

"We've never done what they're asking," he said, "nor have I seen any evidence that it needs to be done."

The Human Rights Commission of Salt Lake City released a report last month detailing incidences of discrimination in the city, many of which involved LGBT residents, but Buttars questioned the validity of some of those claims.

"I have never seen any facts to back it up," he said. "They want to say they're being hurt more than someone else, I guess. If anybody had a right to special protection it would be Mormons; they've been persecuted but not as bad as the American Indian. But they're not pounding on the newspaper's door. Or the Jewish people; the Jewish people have lots of people hate them. I love them. But you know that's true."

So apparently, things like race, religion, and age "affect everybody" so laws banning discrimination on those grounds are okay but "sexual orientation" only applies to a "little group" so any such law is unfair. and unneeded

Here's a newsflash: "sexual orientation" affects everyone too since everyone, even Chris Buttars, has a "sexual orientation," just as everyone has an age and a race.

Who ever would have guessed that Republican politicians in Utah, of all places, would be making decisions, at least seemingly in part, simply in order to stick it to state-level right-wing groups like the Eagle Forum? 

As the Salt Lake Tribune reports, Utah's Lieutenant Governor Gary Herbert is "expected to be sworn in as Utah's 17th governor on Aug, 11, assuming Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is confirmed by the Senate this week to be U.S. ambassador to China. "

As such, Herbert had to choose someone to fill the Lieutenant Governor's position once he becomes Governor and he has selected Sen. Greg Bell - and he reportedly did so in response to "an opposition campaign from the Utah Eagle Forum that tried to cast Bell as too liberal":

In the past several days, the conservative Eagle Forum tried to rally its members to pressure Herbert to bypass Bell because they objected to his moderate position on same-sex partnerships. But [Senate President Michael] Waddoups said that may have forced Herbert to pick Bell, so he didn't appear to be caving to the conservative pressure.

"You've got the [Eagle Forum President] Gayle Ruzicka comments out there," Waddoups said, "that I think makes it hard for Gary to pick someone more conservative, even if he wanted to."

...

In the 2005 Legislature, Bell sponsored a Huntsman-backed bill that would have allowed unmarried partners, including gay couples, to enter into contracts regarding property ownership and health matters. The bill failed.

And, in the 2008 session, Bell helped negotiate a compromise that enabled Salt Lake City to keep a registry -- albeit under a new name -- for domestic partnerships.

Those stances incurred the wrath of Ruzicka's group, which has been calling and e-mailing Herbert's office urging him not to pick Bell.

Of course, considering that Ruzicka and her group came rallying to the defense of Utah state Senator Chris Buttars after his diatribe comparing gays to Islamic radicals and America to Sodom and Gomorrah while proclaiming that gays have no morals and that acceptance of their lifestyle will bring about the destruction of the nation, it's easy to see why Herbert might be eager to avoid being seen as doing their bidding.

• In a move that surprises nobody, the Family Research Council is welcoming Tony Dungy's invitation to join the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, saying they "hope President Obama will be open to the counsel he offers on behalf of millions of other Bible-believing Christians [and] hope the Faith Council will work to channel pro-family policies."
• Sarah Palin has been dropped as keynote speaker at the GOP's annual Senate-House Dinner in Washington on June 8 and replaced by Newt Gingrich, but she'll still be attending the Vanderburgh County Right to Life dinner in Evansville, IN on April 16th.
• Faith and Action has posted video of Rob Schenck's remarks at yesterday's PreNDA press conference, while Frank Pavone and Alveda King have also come out in support of the legislation.
• RNC Chair Michael Steel says the GOP needs to be more "unconventional [and] unpredictable" while one-time supporter Ken Blackwell says that if the Republican candidate doesn't win the special election in New York state's heavily Republican 20th district, the defeat will be "devastating" for Steele, though he is not sure if it'll result in Steele's ouster because "it is as hard to get rid of an ineffective chairman of the RNC as it is to get rid of a bad teacher in the New York City public schools."
• Finally, a poll conducted by Deseret News/KSL-TV found that 63 percent of Utahns favored the action taken against state Sen. Chris Buttars for his anti-gay rant, while only 31 percent opposed it.

Today's best reporting on the Right from around the web:

• Was Rick Santelli's televised rant part of some right-wing astroturf plot?
• Niger Innis takes his bogus "stop the war on the poor" campaign to CPAC where, Media Matters reports, he declared that today's environmentalists are the same as racists who desire to keep minorities from getting an equal opportunity.
• Mother Jones notes that Mitt Romney wowed the CPAC audience: ""[T]he crowd loved him. It felt a little like a campaign rally. If Romney runs for president in 2012, this will be his base." It also explains why he won the CPAC straw poll.
• David Neiwert says that CPAC's popularity contests tell us a lot about the current state of the Right.
• Slate hung out with Grover Norquist at CPAC where he unleashed a stream of metaphors "designed to advertise [conservative ideas that] have never been more out of fashion. It's as if he's trying to sell beepers to a nation of iPhones."
• Pam reports that other members of the Utah Senate are defending Sen. Chris Buttars, saying that the "people in Utah agree with 90 percent of what he said."

Last week, after Utah state Senator Chris Buttars compared gays to Islamic radicals and America to Sodom and Gomorrah, and said that gays have no morals and that acceptance of their lifestyle will bring about the destruction of the nation, he was stripped of his position as chairman of the Senate's judiciary committee ... but it doesn't look like that has put the controversy to rest.

Yesterday, the Utah Seante shut down for two hours as Republicans continue to try and figure out what, if anything, to do about Buttars:

The Utah Senate stopped working for about two hours Monday as Republicans privately met to discuss a lawmaker's recent comments that gay people don't have morals and that gay activists are among America's greatest threats.

Not a single bill was debated on the Senate floor Monday morning, increasing the backlog of bills that may never become law simply because lawmakers will run out of time to approve them before the 45-day session ends.

...

Buttars' comments and his removal from the judiciary committee have created a rift in the Senate Republican caucus, prompting the private meeting. Senate leaders said Buttars wouldn't face any more sanctions and that no position was taken on the issue during their meeting.

While Republicans struggle to deal with this, it also looks like Democrats in the state aren't making it any easier for them:

Utah Senate Democrats on Tuesday called for the ouster of a GOP lawmaker from two additional key committee posts because of his anti-gay comments.

...

Democrats — outnumbered by Republicans 21 to 8 in the Senate — called Tuesday for additional sanctions, including removal of Buttars from the rules committee, of which he is vice chairman. The rules committee is one of the most powerful in the Legislature because it decides which bills lawmakers will debate.

Democrats also requested that Buttars lose his chairmanship on the health and human services committee, although they didn't propose he be removed from that panel entirely.

For his part, Buttars remains unrepentant and vows never to resign:

I was disappointed to learn of the Utah State Senate’s censure on Feb. 20, 2009. However, this action will not discourage me from defending marriage from an increasingly vocal and radical segment of the homosexual community.

In recent years, registering opposition to the homosexual agenda has become almost impossible. Political correctness has replaced open and energetic debate. Those who dare to disagree with the homosexual agenda are labeled "haters," and "bigots," and are censured by their peers. The media contributes to the problem. Increasingly, individuals with conservative beliefs are targeted by a left-leaning media that uses their position of public trust as a bully pulpit. This pattern of intimidation suppresses free speech.

For the record, I do not agree with the censure I see it as an attempt to shy away from controversy. In particular, I disagree with my removal as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, since my work there is entirely unrelated to my opposition to the homosexual agenda.

Still, I’m a grown man and I can take my knocks. When it comes right down to it, I would rather be censured for doing what I think is right, than be honored by my colleagues for bowing to the pressure of a special interest group that has been allowed to act with impunity.

Thanks to the many citizens who have written and called to express their support. Please know that I’ll live through this to fight another day. In years to come, we’ll all look back at this point in history and see it as a crossroads. I have no intention of resigning.

Today's best reporting on the Right from around the web:

• If you thought Utah Sen. Chris Buttars' statements were outrageous, check out this post from Good as You on the statements made by Paul Mero of the Sutherland Institute during a debate on gay rights at the University of Utah.
• Pam's House Blend reports that an anti-gay member of the Allegheny [PA] County Council has been arrested on more than 20 counts of bilking a 90 year old widow whose $14.5 million trust fund he was paid to administer.
• Steve Benen makes several good points regarding The American Issues Project's new ad saying that if you spent $1 million a day since the day Jesus was born, you would still have spent less money than Congress just did with the stimulus bill.
• RH Reality Check explains that the anti-choice factions who are working against Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius's potential nomination to be HHS Secretary are driven, in part, by her recruitment of a Democratic challenger to knock off rabidly anti-choice Attorney General Phill Kline.