During the closing stages of the 2011 Utah Legislative Session, a curious thing happened; an old political player in Utah turned in his resignation. I am talking about Utah State Senator Chris Buttars, who retired from the Utah Legislature on the final day of the Legislative Session. Buttars was 68 when he retired and throughout his career he has become well known for making very offensive comments on record and passing through legislation which was very prejudiced and outspoken. In his closing remarks before putting in his resignation, Buttars also said that he was very proud that throughout his career he “upheld Utah values”, and coincidentally, Buttars also retired after serving the required time on the state legislature to be eligible to receive President Obama's Health Care for life.
Buttars was first elected to the Utah Senate from District 5 in the 2000 elections. In 2004 Buttars ran for District 10 and won, and he did the same in 2008; but he retired before finishing his 4 year 2008 term. Buttars has represented South Jordan and West Jordan in those above terms. Since his election, the former senator has made it his job to stand against gay rights, and education, all while promoting religion (more specifically Christianity), as well as making racist remarks consistently along the way.
In 2010 Buttars spoke to the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee in the hopes of convincing them that the 12th of public schooling was a waste of time. Thankfully his thoughts never materialized themselves into a bill and he dropped the subject, pledging to bring it up in 2011, which he didn't. His argument for such an idea was that too many kids wasted their senior year of high school, he assumed that instead of studying students spent their time pursuing other interests. What the ex-senator failed to notice was that the 12th grade is a big part of the transition between high school and college, and many students take college level classes during this year to get them more prepared for college, but without having to go through the full pressures of being a full time degree seeking student.
On gay rights, Buttars has said that the pursuit of rights for the LGBTQ community is, “probably the greatest threat to America.” An exaggeration at the very least! Buttars has constantly voiced his opinion about the gay community because he thought that homosexuality was “immoral”.
Buttars has also been very open about Christianity and promoting it. In 2009 Buttars also put the idea to the legislature that would encourage retailers to say “merry christmas” to their customers. He expressed his thoughts that the U.S was a Christian nation, and clearly ignoring the tenet that divorces church and state. Another of his ideas was teaching creationism in public school science classes. Many people were relieved when neither of these propositions became law.
Throughout his time serving the state of Utah, Buttars has made racist comments. At one point he referred to a bill as a black baby, a dark, ugly thing. He has also said that Brown vs. Board of Education was, “wrong to begin with.” Such a blatant use of language and ignorance was surprising to find in someone of power at the state legislature.
So when it came time for Buttars to give his last talk as a senator, it came as a surprise to my colleagues and I when he stated that he stood for Utah values, we had to ask ourselves which values he stood for? He stood for Racism, forcing religion on people who don't want it, oppressing the gay community, and devaluing education. All while being a hypocrite seeing as he spent enough time on the legislature (10 years and no more) to receive the current government health care for life (President Obama's Plan), something that Republicans like himself and his colleagues have long stood against.
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