A racist comment about a black baby. A crusade in favor of a Christmas KGB. You probably recognize those faux pas positions as being held by Utah State Senator Chris Buttars. It couldn't possibly get any worse...could it?Uhhh, yep; it could. Yesterday Chris Buttars compared gays and lesbians to terrorists.
Yikes!
Should he resign? I don't think so, but I wonder what those people were thinking who voted him back into office last fall. And I especially wonder what they're thinking now.
In an interview with KTVX TV channel 4, Chris Buttars's unconscionable statement went something like this:
Sen. Chris Buttars believes gays and lesbians are "the greatest threat to America going down," comparing members of the LGBT community to radical Muslims.Whaaaaaaaat!!!??
"I believe they will destroy the foundation of the American society," the West Jordan Republican said in a recent interview with documentary filmmaker Reed Cowan. "In my mind, it's the beginning of the end. … Sodom and Gomorrah was localized. This is worldwide."
Now, if he had said that the Money Masters who are fomenting all of these bailouts and stimulus packages are the greatest threat to America, then he'd be accurate. Instead he is left to wallow in the moral squalor that he has created for himself.
If this spate of oddities isn't due to his health, as Rep. Steve Mascaro suggests, then I think it's that Chris Buttars has become a buffoon who enjoys the infamy.
I am so glad the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came out with a statement disagreeing with Buttars's comments, because Buttars so often seems to be caricatured as a poster child for the LDS Church. He's not.
I feel for the young Utahns who are conflicted in the first place by their homosexuality. They don't need their problems compounded by being vilified as supposed terrorists by Chris Buttars. He's dead wrong, but I suppose he's got a right to say it.
What needs to happen now is for Utahns--and especially Utah Mormons--to come out of the woodwork and express their disagreement with Chris Buttars.
Quote from Sundays Salt Lake Tribune...
ReplyDeleteSenate leaders disciplined Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, not for anti-gay comments he made in a recent interview, but because he violated a deal with leadership that he not talk about gay issues, a senator said Saturday.
"Most of what Senator Buttars said, I agree with," Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, said in a weekly Red Meat Radio program he hosts on K-TALK. "We as a Senate caucus had an agreement that because Sen. Buttars had become such a lightning rod on this issue, he would not be the spokesman on this issue, and basically he violated that agreement."
Utah may be going to hell in a handbasket, but I'm pretty sure the Gays and Lesbians aren't the ones sending us there...
As rancorous as Buttars' bigoted statements about gays being the meanest people around, being amoral, being akin to Islamic terrorists, and being the "greatest threat" were, I think you neglected the most contemptible statement. The one in which he equated homosexual activity with bestiality ("pig sex"). It embarrasses me to no end that such an openly ignorant and hateful man has been able to maintain elected office in my state for so long.
ReplyDeleteUK,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how Stephenson can agree with much of it at all, simply due to the fact that it was expressed with such unmitigated vitriol.
Derek,
I didn't catch the "pig sex" innuendo in the part of the interview that I listened to. At any rate, I think that Senator Buttars has shown by what I HAVE heard to be a far greater danger to America than homosexuals. Maybe he has an ounce of love for his fellow men somewhere in his body, but I haven't been able to detect it anywhere.