No flaming please. I didn’t mean to compare Gays to Polygamists. But if Utah Senator Chris Butt-Ars (A-ha!) has his right to speak what is on his mind, to spout garbage based on stereotypes and gross generalization and nothing else, despite being an elected public official, then I have the right to generalize the State of Utah as still the hotbed of polygamy, and then to generalize polygamy as the Pantheon of immorality.
Hey, it is a free country, right? Butt-Ars’s Republican colleagues in the Senate seem to believe so.
Here is the gist:
In an interview for a documentary film, “Butt-Ars called gays ‘the greatest threat to America’ and likened them to Muslim radicals. He said homosexuals lack any morals and want special rights. ‘It’s the beginning of the end,’ Buttars said. ‘Oh, it’s worse than that. Sure. Sodom and Gomorrah was localized. This is worldwide.'”
Butt-ars has been stripped of his chairmanships by Senate Republicans after a closed-door meeting brought about by the outcry, and his Republican colleagues were outraged and they are standing behind him. (I wish I had loyal friends like these…) Butt-ars likewise refused to apologize, but rather relished the pride of taking a stand for his own beliefs. (Imagine: what if we all had showed respect for the slave owners who took the stand for their own beliefs? Hmmm…)
Below is the lengthy quote from The Salt Lake Tribune because you simply cannot make this stuff up!
“I want the citizens of Utah to know that the Utah Senate stands behind Senator Buttars right to speak, we stand behind him as one of our colleagues and his right to serve this state,” said Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville. “He is a senator who represents the point of view of many of his constituents and many of ours. We agree with many of the things he said. . . . We stand four square behind his right [to say what he wants].”
Buttars, R-West Jordan, said he “totally” disagrees with his removal from the panel. In a statement he plans to post on the Senate’s Web page, he said the action was an attempt to “shy away from controversy.” And, he said, he would not apologize for his comments.
“I don’t have anything to apologize for,” he said.
Wow. Are you kidding me? Is this for real? In this day and age? I must be incredibly naive to be astounded by these news lately so easily.
This and the Cartoon from the New York Post yesterday are reminders that we should not be complacent about “How far we have come along” despite the victory of having elected the first African American POTUS. Baby, we’ve still got a long way to go…
“When it comes right down to it,” Buttars said in his statement, “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.”
