This is a re-post from last year in honor of the repeat of last year.
Utah got her first openly gay State Senator several years ago in a mid-term procedure in which delegates-only voted for a young lawyer named Scott McCoy. On that day, something changed in Utah.
But it has not unfortunately dissuaded our state legislature from exploring ways to prevent our children from understanding that homosexuality is not a sin, and not choice.
Last week, history was made when the sponsoring senator and a friend made a full frontal assault on homosexuality which elicited one of the most powerful, elegant responses in defense of homosexuality that certainly the Utah State Senate has ever heard or that I have ever heard.
Gay and Lesbian people are going to live in the state of Utah.
We’re gonna be in the high schools.
And we’re gonna have families.
And we’re gonna be raising them here.And I would simply ask
that you allow us to do that
and leave us – alone.
I have edited several audio versions of Scott’s Speech for your convenience:
Includes 1-minute preview of Buttars’ & friend testimony -7.5 minutes .mp3
Includes all following testimony - 20 minutes – .mp3
By popular demand un-edited testimony preceeding Scott’s speech -16 minutes - .mp3
The entire session – 22 minutes - .mp3
Senator Gene Davis – Speech – 2 minutes .mp3 .mpg
Gene Davis also gave a wonderful speech.
It disturbs me deeply, that we would throw stones – at our fellow men and women at such a time. This is important. The messages that we send from here, create attitudes that go into the populous. And we should be about healing. Not dividing.
Senator Brent Goodfellow – Spoke about how many years ago, Senator Reed Smoot was not seated for a year because of discrimination against Mormons.
Senator Fife also spoke about how Utah had already been down this road 12 years ago.
Several republican Senators spoke as well in defense of their votes, some with reluctance others without. This bill passed. The Governor has said he will not sign it.
States have been using...
#1 by Paul - March 1st, 2006 at 19:22
Much better Cliff! Thanks for doing that. Who elects these people?
#2 by Lynette - March 1st, 2006 at 20:56
Help me understand how on earth, in this day and age, we can elect someone like Buttars? Do his contsituents know how off the deep end he is?
I can understand that some people are like that, but how do they get elected?
#3 by Chris Buttars - March 2nd, 2006 at 11:24
I’m sorry. After listening to myself, I realize I have misinterpreted the teachings of the Church. I now understand that respect for all people is the highest principle. It is not my job to judge any man, and I am sorry.
Sexual preference is no more my business than is the sex life of my parents, grandparents, siblings and neighbors, and has no business in the public square.
What changed my mind? I read an article that convinced me that homosexuality IS NOT a choice, but rather a gift from Our Creator who blesses us daily with infinite beauty of unpredictable variety.
I finally understand that if we teach tolerance and respect for all people regardless of race, religion, health, and sexual preference, gay kids wouldn’t need GSA’s to help deal with hate and discrimination.
Please accept my apology.
#4 by Tim - March 2nd, 2006 at 13:27
I believe in flying pigs and Santa Claus, but the Buttars entry seems beyond miraculous. Plus, he’d pick a kitchy screen name like “Descended From Baboons”.
#5 by glenn - March 2nd, 2006 at 14:09
Love the pictures, my money is on the Devil!
#6 by Paul - March 2nd, 2006 at 17:56
You are not alone (re: “Gay discrimination bill dies in SC Senate panel,†2/9/2006)
They call them the Bigotry Brigade–those fearless legislators and putative preachers who would preserve the sanctity of marriage and keep the work place the domain of heterosexuals. Their latest triumph is the rejection of a bill that would put into law the governor’s executive order giving job protection to gays. A Baptist leader commends the decision because he says “that activity,” by which he apparently means being homosexual, “is against the teaching of the word of God, and that settles it for us.” Being against the teaching of the word God, it would seem, trumps the hoary Virginian right to work creed.
But maybe they aren’t the Bigotry Brigade. Maybe, in their pursuit of God’s will, all they want to do is to make us a truly God-fearing heterosexual Christian nation. If that is their aim just think of all the constructive things they could do.
For example, they could root out those state employees, like my fellow professors here in Charlottesville, who are homosexuals or atheists. Or both. Are they undermining the word of God before their students? At least, if the ones already here can’t be sacked, new hires could be required to sign a heterosexual Christian loyalty oath.
And what about those state honors given to gays and atheists? I know of more than one atheist who has received from the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia an outstanding professor award. I know, too, of one who was a lesbian. How can we justify continuing to honor as the best educators in the Commonwealth people who defy, not to say defile, the word of God?
Then there’s the question of the enemy within. What about those atheists and homosexuals already in the General Assembly? Should they be outed? Or the Congress of the United States? Maybe the Bigotry Brigade should propose a constitutional amendment for both the state and the federal government that would require all candidates for office to sign a purity statement. The First Amendment would have to be scrapped, but wouldn’t that be God’s will?
The possibilities are endless, aren’t they?
#7 by AD - March 2nd, 2006 at 21:51
I read with sadness and ultimately frustration for one of the finest men I know, Senator Scott McCoy, and his fight to allow Gay-Straight Alliance clubs to remain in schools. Scott is an attorney, partnered for years with a wonderful man and came from New York to Utah to make a difference. He, along with many of my gay friends did not choose to be gay, any more than I chose to be heterosexual - it is just what I am.
For over 100 years, the LDS Church taught its members from the pulpit and in Sunday school, that blacks were inferior, and would never have the priesthood. In June of 1978 (and just as the ACLU was going to bring a lawsuit against the LDS Church for discrimination), a revelation was received indicating that the priesthood should be extended to all worthy male members of that organization, notwithstanding their race.
I applaud the niece of Mr. Soulier for her courage to stand up to the hypocrisy and outright bigotry that is permeated by this religion. She is standing up for civil rights as did many people before her, for my people. If these clubs teach tolerance and acceptance, and open minds to question, we need more of them. It is becoming abundantly clear during this incredibly punitive legislative session, that we need them more than ever, and perhaps not for the children, but the adults.
#8 by sam - March 2nd, 2006 at 22:59
If that is Buttars then he deserves a hug, and the forgiveness of those who will give it.
#9 by utahblue - March 3rd, 2006 at 18:44
Amen to that. Now if he could get rid of that Captain Chaos rap he’d be set.
#10 by Nephi - March 4th, 2006 at 21:23
Verily, I say, a true irony of Buttars and his so-called “morals” crusade is that if given the chance, he and his ilk would legalize polygamy tomorrow in the name of religion.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!