Saintless

 

After President Waddoups ended the press conference about Buttars, Troy Williams pressed him to speak to the gay community. My impression was that he was looking for some sort of apology or empathy from Waddoups, and the Republican caucus in general, for the hurtful statements that Senator Buttars has made. Waddoups replied that he didn’t hear a question. Troy then asked if Waddoups thought that gay people have the same rights everyone else does. Waddoups sidestepped the question, answering that the Constitution gave everyone rights.

 

 

 

Waddoups and the rest of the Republicans there for the press conference left. Senators Pat Jones and Ross Romero then took some questions and made some statements. I wasn’t able to catch them all, because the room was buzzing with noise.

Senator Pat Jones spoke about the fact that they were pushing for something to happen in regards to Buttars, but that it was something that the Republican leadership had to deal with. She was asked if she was satisfied with the censure of Buttars, and she refused to answer.

 

Senator Ross Romero then spoke. He said that he was proposing today on the floor that there be a join rule change for both House and Senate, require cultural sensitivity and diversity training. He said that he fully agreed that free speech was legal and proper, but that there needed to be a balance when representing the people. He said that it would help (people like Buttars) to understand how offensive certain things they say could be. He mentioned that he had considered it last year after Buttars’ “black baby” comment. The purpose of this would not be to limit free speech, but for representatives to better understand the effects their speech has on others.

 

Romero also said that he thought that there should be an apology issued because of statements such as the one where Buttars said that the LGBT community lacks morals.

Senator Jones stepped back in to say that she felt that if Buttars apologized but was not sincere, it would be disingenuous.

 

 

Shortly after that, Troy Williams went up to Gayle Ruzicka, President of The Eagle Forum, and spoke with her. The cameras were all over that. Ruzicka was obviously trying to leave the whole time. I didn’t hear the whole conversation, but I did hear Troy suggest that Gayle ask Buttars what “pig sex” was. He also asked her how she could support him when he outright lied, and how was that moral or just. I don’t think she answered, and she did finally get her opportunity to run out of the room. That was quite an interesting exchange, and I was proud of Troy for taking the opportunity.

Tags: Eagle Forum, Gayle Ruzicka, Senator Chris Buttars, Senator Pat Jones, Senator Ross Romero, Troy Williams

This entry was posted on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 10:56 am and is filed under LGBTQ, Utah, human rights, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.