Utah

Yesterday, Utah lawmakers spent two hours debating how to teach sex education in schools despite the fact that they didn't even have a bill to debate.   The proposed bill that would create two different tracks for sex education in Utah public schools - one that includes information about contraceptives, and one that teaches abstinence only - wasn't ready in time for the hearing, but that didn't stop Health and Human Services Committee Co-Chair Chris Buttars from holding the hearing anyway because he had already flown in a right-wing "expert" to testify against it:

[C]ommittee co-chairman Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, said during the meeting he was not aware there was no bill to present. He said afterward he decided to hold the discussion anyway because he had already flown in psychiatrist and author Miriam Grossman to talk about the topic on his own dime.

Grossman spent about a half hour talking about how not enough scientific facts are included in sex education and how the national Planned Parenthood promotes what she considers to be high-risk sexual behavior among teens.

"The primary goals of these organizations is not to fight disease," Grossman said. "It is to create a society that tolerates, indeed celebrates, any kind of sexual activity."

Grossman, who bills herself as "100% MD and 0% PC," is affiliated with the Claire Booth Luce Policy Institute and is the author of two books: "You're Teaching My Child What? A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Education and How They Harm Your Child" and "Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness Endangers Every Student." So it's not hard to see why someone like Buttars would use his own money to bring her in to testify.

But without an actual bill to debate, committee members ended up merely passing a motion on party lines that urges the legislature "to consider any person or organizations that promotes, recommends or teaches high-risk sexual behavior, Web sites, examples or talks" as inappropriate in public schools.  Because, as Buttars put it, while want our children to learn from knowledgeable people, the people who teach them about sex shouldn't be too knowledgeable: 

With no actual bill to debate, the discussion shifted to topics of morality. The group Planned Parenthood was accused of infiltrating schools to push their agenda. Nearly two hours into the debate, a surprise motion was proposed by Sen. David Hinkins, R-Emery County to "not consider any persons or organizations that promotes or recommends teaching extreme sexual acts."

"Are they being considered in the schools right now?" Sen. Pat Jones, D-Holladay, asked him. "I just want to know how this would change things?"

"I worry about using organizations in our public schools that have sites that go to these extreme measures," Rep. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, interjected. "There's got to be people that's knowledgeable that don't go that far."

You remember Utah state Senator Chris Buttars, who earlier this year compared gays to Islamic radicals, America to Sodom and Gomorrah, proclaimed that gays have no morals and declared that acceptance of their lifestyle will bring about the destruction of the nation, don't you?

Well, given such views, it doesn't come as much of a surprise that he refuses to believe that gays suffer discrimination and is threatening to introduce legislation that would override any effort by Salt Lake City to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance:

Republican State Senator Chris Buttars, who has said publicly that he believes gay people have no morals, isn’t one to shy away from giving his opinion on gay-rights issues. He doesn’t believe discrimination actually occurs against LGBT Utahns, and doesn’t believe sexual orientation should be a protected class. So if Salt Lake City passes an anti-discrimination ordinance that would apply to sexual orientation, he plans to respond from the state Capitol.

“I don’t believe the discrimination they scream about is really real,” he told KCPW. “I’m watching that to see what they try to do, and if they keep pushing it, then I will bring a bill about it.”

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.

Utah state Senator Chris Buttars seems to generate news whenever he opens him mouth because you can be sure that whatever comes out it going to be idiotic or offensive or both.  

Buttars has been making news since back in 2006, when he proclaimed that the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education was "wrong to begin with” and again last year when he voiced his opposition to an education bill by saying “this baby is black…this is a dark, ugly thing." In December he was named the “Worst Person in the World” by Keith Olbermann for his effort to make sure everyone said “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.”

And I have a feeling that once this audio clip from Good As You starts to get around, Buttars will once again find himself in the running for Olbermann’s honor.  

ABC 4 in Salt Lake City, which first reported the story, reports that the audio comes from an interview Buttars did with filmmaker Reed Cowan for his upcoming documentary called "8: The Mormon Proposition.” In it, Buttars compares gays to Islamic radicals, compares America to Sodom and Gomorrah, that gays have no morals and that acceptance of their lifestyle will bring about the destruction of the nation. 

The entire rambling clip is over 15 minutes long, but we’ve taken the highlights and edited it down and provided this rough transcript (if the player isn't working, you can listen to the audio here):

I believe in the Constitution being something that was inspired of God and the way these people are destroying the Constitution is they’re saying the Constitution is a living document, that means it’s subject to change.  But truth don’t change, it does not change, and I won’t accept any of that.  So they say, well, marriage is between a man and a women and that’s changed, look around, look at all these combinations. Combinations of abominations, as far as I’m concerned. To me, homosexuality will always be a sexual perversion and you say that around here now and everybody goes nuts, but I don’t care.  

They want to talk about being nice, but they’re the meanest buggers I’ve ever seen. It’s just like the Muslims.  Muslims are good people and their religion is anti-war, but it’s been taken over by the radical side and the gays are totally taken over by the radical side. You don’t see the gay out there saying “let’s not do this gang.” You see them marching around with signs and everything else.

I believe the whole thing is immoral and I believe you're moving towards … you see, if you say to me “quit shoving your morals down my throat, Buttars” my answer back is “you know my morals. What’s yours?” What is the morals of a gay person? You can’t answer that, because anything goes. So now you’re moving towards a society that has no morals and there’s never been a nation that survived that’s done that.

There’s a lot of dollar costs. You take their trying to have insurance rights the same as a man and a woman. Now, when you’re married, insurance companies can quantify, we got this many married people so they run their underwriting.  You have no way to do that with gay people and you’re going to take on paying for all the extra, most often, diseases, and that’s huge. And now you, as a straight, get to share that cost. That’s what I’m talking about. Those kinds of diseases are not exclusive with gays, but they represent the huge majority.

I believe that you will destroy the foundation of American society because I believe the cornerstone of it is a man and a woman and a family.  It is, in my mind, the beginning of the end. Oh, it's worse than that. Sure, Sodom and Gomorrah was localized, this is world-wide.  You can’t tell me that something was going on in Sodom and Gomorrah is not going on wholesale right now and to a large degree among the gay community … The underbelly is they do not want equality, they want superiority.