Friday, February 15, 2008
In the course of one week, Utah Republican Rep. Chris Buttars has managed to become the ugly face of homophobia and racism. Never one to pause before he speaks, Buttars tried to one-up another senator’s joke Tuesday on the Senate floor with, “This baby is black. It’s a dark, ugly thing,” he said.
Buttars, a Mormon, for years wallowed in his disgust for gays and Planned Parenthood and high school science teachers for that matter, may’ve finally gone too far. Passing out fliers a few years ago with graphic descriptions of gay sex on the Senate floor didn’t raise an eyebrow but his attempt to bask in another lawmaker’s lame joke was too much.
Buttars’ history shows a troubling pattern of bad behavior.
Two years ago, he told public radio station KCPW that the landmark desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education was “wrong to begin with.” He called Sen. Scott McCoy “The Gay,” when the Salt Lake City Democrat was appointed to the Legislature. One Salt Lake Tribune online poster calls him “Archie Buttars.” He’s more like former Alabama Gov. George Wallace – a festering relic of an uglier time.
Buttars legislative record is a thing to behold: keep police misconduct files secret, nullify Salt Lake City’s domestic-partnership registry and strip Planned Parenthood out of a bill meant to curb growing rates of chlamydia in Utah teens.
SOURCE: Salt Lake City Tribune
From the Left 
This Republican is truly disgusting. I have to wonder why the Utah voters in his district keep reelecting him? Do they secretly share his racist and homophobic points of view?
Is Romney friends with Buttars?
What a vile man.
You have to stop to ponder what is in anyone’s heart that allows them to harbor such wrathful, cruel thoughts toward to their fellow human beings?
Let’s hope Chris Buttars just stays in Utah and never leaves.
It’s bad enough there are humans as contemptible as this man out there but a supposed public servant to have the power and platform to express such abhorrent views is truly tragic.
“I certainly didn’t vote for him, it was that other guy!”
No one claims to have voted for Bush, no one claims to have voted for this guy. Besides Fred Phelps-type jackasses. I don’t think I’d be able to muster up too much sympathy if this clown ever met a terrible end.
Holy crap! I hadn’t heard about this guy (big surprise that he’s not being featured by the MSM for his remarks, right?). Amazing.
We Dems may not be perfect but we don’t very often have people like Chris Buttars surface. What a douchebag.
Fucking racist asshole. Just when I think we’ve turned the page and people like this have become a historical footnote, another one surfaces to piss me off.
Isn’t this the same wingtard who was in the news a few years ago for sponsoring legislation that allowed Utah public schools to ban LGBT student clubs on the grounds the groups are a threat to the moral foundation of the community?
Sounds to me people like Rep. Buttars are the real threat to the community.
Buttars is a con artist.
He pimps out his faith and uses it to hide behind and utter such vitriol as his remarks about black kids. In return, he gives voice to the very lowest base elements who make up the conservative right.
I don’t dislike him: I just don’t understand why he’s qualified to serve as an elected lawmaker?
Buttars belongs in the Klan or the Aryan Nation.
I’m glad Senator Romero immediatly called the issue to the Senate President’s attention, who in turn rebuked Senator Buttars and allowed him to apologize.
In what was an otherwise awful situation, at least that was positive.
The best Utah has to offer!
How revolting.
Buttars now serves as Exhibit A under the category: no reason to exist.
What a fucking wanker.
Mormon Churches routinely preach white supremacy behind closed doors, regardless of their public rhetoric.
I am a non-Utahn, non-Mormon living in Utah. Buttars represents everything that is wrong with Utah. I choose to live here because it has its good points. But these guys are a disgrace. Buttars stated that a woman’s health should not be considered when evaluating the need for late term abortions – yet he thinks it is just wrong that people who have made little felonious mistakes in life can nver again own handguns. An earlier post questioned why Utah people vote for this guy – it’s because they agree with him.