{"id":13835,"date":"2009-02-20T20:29:09","date_gmt":"2009-02-21T03:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=13835"},"modified":"2009-02-20T20:28:59","modified_gmt":"2009-02-21T03:28:59","slug":"the-politics-of-hate-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/02\/20\/the-politics-of-hate-revisited.html","title":{"rendered":"The Politics of Hate (Revisited)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Could it be? Might there actually be some consequences for spouting off homophobic claptrap<\/a>, even in the Utah State Legislature? It appears so<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Senator Chris Buttars has been removed from his chairmanship of the senate judicial committee for his comments about homosexuals that were first broadcast by ABC4..<\/p>\n

The Utah Senate announced in a press conference Buttars has been removed from his chair of the judicial committee.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It should be noted that this was not simply “comments,” or simple criticism, or expression of personal moral objections to homosexuality that Buttars uttered. This was slanderous, foaming-at-the-mouth character assassination, comparing gays to alcoholics, to Islamicist terrorists, and portraying them as amoral “mean buggers,” out to take over society and get innocent taxpayers to cover their Evil Gay Insurance Bills. <\/p>\n

If Buttars’ comments were said about blacks, or women, or blondes, or Jews, or foreigners, or … well, about practically anyone but gays, Buttars would have been ridden out of town on a rail. At the very least, in this case, he’s been given a censure and actual loss of prestige by his Republican majority brethren.<\/p>\n

\n

Later Friday morning, Buttars responded to the Senate leadership’s actions on the Senate’s unofficial blog, saying:<\/p>\n

“…I\u2019m 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.”<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Well, bully for him for standing up for what he believes in. Though how he thinks that gays act “with impunity” given the number of people who both despise then and have no qualms about expressing that despising is beyond me. But it’s not unusual for the most prejudiced to claim that they are, in turn, being discriminated against<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

I was disappointed to learn of the Utah State Senate\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I would say that Buttars’ comments went far beyond the (sadly) standard (public) rhetoric of the “Defend Marriage!” crowd.<\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I will point out, by the way, to all those ACLU-haters in the studio audience, that the ACLU fully backed (as do I) Buttars’ freedom to spout off<\/a> whatever hateful nonsense he wants.<\/p>\n

\n

While we disagree vehemently with Senator Buttars\u2019 views, we strongly support the Constitution\u2019s free speech protections. Free speech rights are indivisible. Restricting the speech of one group or individual jeopardizes everyone’s rights because the same laws or regulations used to silence unpopular and controversial speech can be used to silence valid discourse.<\/p>\n

[…] Having heard Senator Buttars\u2019 recent comments, the public can decide if these comments are representative of its views and take appropriate action with regards to Senator Buttars\u2019 position as a public, elected official. They also can and should exercise their own Constitutionally-protected freedoms to respond as they deem appropriate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As the ACLU notes, though, Free Speech refers to governmental and legal restrictions. Social <\/em>consequences to the freedom of self-expression are quite a different thing, and not only are unavoidable, but are dangerous to try and legislate against. And, in this case, politics follows the social pressure, and the Utah Republicans realized that Buttars’ spew (which even the LDS Church had to explicitly distance itself from<\/a>) had too much political fall-out to tolerate. <\/p>\n

At least for now.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Could it be? Might there actually be some consequences for spouting off homophobic claptrap, even in the Utah State Legislature? It appears so. Senator Chris Buttars has been removed from his chairmanship of the senate judicial committee for his comments about homosexuals that were first broadcast by ABC4.. The Utah Senate announced in a press … Continue reading “The Politics of Hate (Revisited)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25,9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gay-stuff","category-politics-law","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13795,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/02\/19\/the-politics-of-hate.html","url_meta":{"origin":13835,"position":0},"title":"The politics of hate","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 19-Feb-09 10:55am","format":false,"excerpt":"Wherein Utah Senator Chris Buttars rambles on about Evil Gays and how they're aiming to destroy America. He was captured on tape -- which, along with audio, is now loose on the Net. It runs about 15 minutes or so. For example ... I believe in the Constitution being something\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LGBTQ &c"","block_context":{"text":"LGBTQ &c","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gay-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15636,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/08\/24\/unblogged-bits-for-monday-24-august-2009.html","url_meta":{"origin":13835,"position":1},"title":"Unblogged Bits for Monday, 24 August 2009","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 24-Aug-09 6:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... \u201cWorld of Warcraft: Cataclysm\u201d is literally a game changer. - Blizzard has the resources to do something like this -- and, wisely, they are. Penn & Teller cut a woman in half on \u201cAmerica\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15640,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/08\/25\/unblogged-bits-for-tuesday-25-august-2009.html","url_meta":{"origin":13835,"position":2},"title":"Unblogged Bits for Tuesday, 25 August 2009","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Aug-09 6:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... The Cheney Torture Memos : Dispatches from the Culture Wars - But remember -- we should just move on, forget about it, give Cheney a Bye, and be simply turn our eyes to 2012\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26154,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/07\/preserving-the-republican-judicial-heritage-by-obstructionism.html","url_meta":{"origin":13835,"position":3},"title":"Preserving the Republican judicial heritage by obstructionism","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Feb-12 9:28am","format":false,"excerpt":"There's really no other explanation for this. At this point in time in Dubya's presidency, the average lag in judicial appointments going from the Senate Judiciary Committee to the floor was 24 days. Yet here are people who have been nominated and sent to the Senate, people who have good\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130202,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/16\/obama-puts-forward-his-scotus-nomination.html","url_meta":{"origin":13835,"position":4},"title":"Obama puts forward his SCOTUS nomination","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 16-Mar-16 2:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Within the bounds of naming a good candidate to replace Antonin Scalia, Obama had a choice between two tactics:1. Pick a nominee who would appeal to a variety of Democratic interest groups, to make the inevitable GOP reject (or refusal to even consider the nominee) a motivating insult to them.2.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7289,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/04\/06\/talk_talk_talk.html","url_meta":{"origin":13835,"position":5},"title":"Talk, talk, talk","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 6-Apr-05 10:11am","format":false,"excerpt":"Observations on Senate Fillibusters: The fillibuster mechanism (more properly, needing 60% to vote for cloture on debate of an issue in the Senate) is designed to force broad consensus on...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}