http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11774334
Kirby: Sorry Sen. Buttars, gay rights won't destroy us
By Robert Kirby
Tribune Columnist
Salt Lake Tribune
Last week, Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, reportedly announced proof that the gay rights movement posed "the greatest threat to America."
According to Buttars, homosexuals lack morals, engage in abominable behavior, are as dangerous as radical Islam, and -- I apologize in advance for saying this, but it's time someone in the media did -- actually fail to floss after every meal.
I consider myself one of the most intolerant people I know, but gays aren't even on my "Top 500 People Whose Guts I Hate" list. I checked it this morning.
Under "H," the list goes from "Happy Birthday Songs in Restaurants" to "Hitler, Adolf" without any mention of "Homosexuals." Nothing under "F" or "Q" either.
Perhaps I fail to appreciate what makes gays so dangerous. Tell me. Is there something else I should be adding to my 72-hour emergency kit? If society collapses -- and it's gays who caused it -- I want to be prepared.
Then again, maybe this is just another of those phony "America is doomed" scares, like giving women the vote. Nearly 90 years ago, people hollered that suffrage was an utter calamity to the American family. When the 19th Amendment passed, just look what happened.
Well, OK, there's really nothing to see except that the lines at the polls got longer. That's pretty bad but it didn't exactly ruin us.
And what about the dreaded Negro? Back when it was all white, didn't America once court disaster by giving blacks the vote, property rights, civil rights and anything else?
People -- idiots mainly -- absolutely guaranteed that doing away with racial barriers would destroy the country. Today, nobody's even wearing a hard hat over it.
It could be that gays are more insidiously evil. The ones I know don't look it, but I've been wrong about appearances before. I was about Bigfoot. Still, let's see what happens when we're nice or even just grudgingly fair to gays.
In 1998, the federal government made it illegal to fire federal employees just for being gay. It's tough to fire federal employees anyway, but this was different. We held our breath and the Dow immediately stayed where it was.
There's always some horrible threat poised to destroy America, something we're doing that reactionaries say will cause God to unleash his wrath upon us. My grandfather thought it was tampon commercials.
Maybe it takes a long time for America's "greatest threats" to destroy it. It could be that we're actually being destroyed as we sit here talking about it. I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
With even a casual glance at our history, it's easy to see that the America people feared seeing destroyed has always been an outdated version that catered almost entirely to them.
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com
Kirby: Sorry Sen. Buttars, gay rights won't destroy us
By Robert Kirby
Tribune Columnist
Salt Lake Tribune
Last week, Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, reportedly announced proof that the gay rights movement posed "the greatest threat to America."
According to Buttars, homosexuals lack morals, engage in abominable behavior, are as dangerous as radical Islam, and -- I apologize in advance for saying this, but it's time someone in the media did -- actually fail to floss after every meal.
I consider myself one of the most intolerant people I know, but gays aren't even on my "Top 500 People Whose Guts I Hate" list. I checked it this morning.
Under "H," the list goes from "Happy Birthday Songs in Restaurants" to "Hitler, Adolf" without any mention of "Homosexuals." Nothing under "F" or "Q" either.
Perhaps I fail to appreciate what makes gays so dangerous. Tell me. Is there something else I should be adding to my 72-hour emergency kit? If society collapses -- and it's gays who caused it -- I want to be prepared.
Then again, maybe this is just another of those phony "America is doomed" scares, like giving women the vote. Nearly 90 years ago, people hollered that suffrage was an utter calamity to the American family. When the 19th Amendment passed, just look what happened.
Well, OK, there's really nothing to see except that the lines at the polls got longer. That's pretty bad but it didn't exactly ruin us.
And what about the dreaded Negro? Back when it was all white, didn't America once court disaster by giving blacks the vote, property rights, civil rights and anything else?
People -- idiots mainly -- absolutely guaranteed that doing away with racial barriers would destroy the country. Today, nobody's even wearing a hard hat over it.
It could be that gays are more insidiously evil. The ones I know don't look it, but I've been wrong about appearances before. I was about Bigfoot. Still, let's see what happens when we're nice or even just grudgingly fair to gays.
In 1998, the federal government made it illegal to fire federal employees just for being gay. It's tough to fire federal employees anyway, but this was different. We held our breath and the Dow immediately stayed where it was.
There's always some horrible threat poised to destroy America, something we're doing that reactionaries say will cause God to unleash his wrath upon us. My grandfather thought it was tampon commercials.
Maybe it takes a long time for America's "greatest threats" to destroy it. It could be that we're actually being destroyed as we sit here talking about it. I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
With even a casual glance at our history, it's easy to see that the America people feared seeing destroyed has always been an outdated version that catered almost entirely to them.
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com
1 comment:
I was pleasantly surprised this evening to find that Mormon-owned, Utah-based TV station KSL had just posted an editorial at KSL.com that begins:
"The brouhaha over recent intemperate remarks by Senator Chris Buttars is more than a distraction, as some of his colleagues contend. It is nothing less than an embarrassment for the man, the institution he represents and the state where he lives."
That sounds about right.
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