The 50 Spot: Utah Politician Compares Gays and Lesbians to "Radical Muslims"

Earlier this week, the Utah-based group America Forever received widespread criticism for an ad they took out in the Salt Lake Tribune that called gays and lesbians "godless."  Proving that America Forever doesn't have exclusive rights to hate and bigotry, Utah State Senator Chris Buttars told Salt Lake City's ABC-affiliate that gays and lesbians were like "radical Muslims."  This, in the wake of news that the Utah legislature killed yet another part of Equality Utah's Common Ground Initiative.  Blerg.  See below for more info, and check out the other news from Georgia and California.

Utah:  State Senator Chris Buttars has been an impediment to equality for years.  Now comes word that he's interviewed in an upcoming documentary on Proposition 8, "8: The Mormon Proposition."  As Salt Lake City's ABC-affiliate reports, Sen. Buttars had these juicy nuggets to share..."Homosexuality will always be a sexual perversion."  "What is the morals of a gay person? You can't answer that because anything goes."  (Editorial comment:  Shouldn't it be "What are the morals..."?  Does Sen. Buttars need a lesson in grammar as much as he needs a lesson in couth?)  These are pretty embarrassing statements, but Sen. Buttars goes one step further and compares gays and lesbians to radical Muslims.  *sigh*  It would be easy to dismiss Sen. Buttars a raving lunatic, although if one needed proof that there's still a long ways to go in Utah, they only need to look at the actions by Utah's legislature yesterday.  Utah lawmakers have killed two more bills promoted by Equality Utah's Common Ground Initiative. The measures voted down yesterday included a provision that would have allowed LGBT people to adopt or provide foster care to children, and one measure that would have banned discrimination against LGBT people in housing and employment.  Only one bill remains in the Common Ground Initiative - a proposal put forward by Utah Rep. Jennifer Seelig, which will expand protections for same-sex couples so they can visit a partner in the hospital, inherit property and make medical decisions.  It's due up for a vote shortly.

Georgia:  A column in the Morehouse College student newspaper has drawn fire for being homophobic, according to the Southern Voice.  Morehouse, an all-male institution  in Atlanta, has a pretty esteemed group of alums, including Martin Luther King Jr., Julian Bond, Spike Lee and David Satcher.  This week, though, it's at the center of debate over campus homophobia.  The article in question, written by the Associate Opinions Editor of the student newspaper on campus, Gerren Gaynor, was headlined "Is Gay the Way?" and lambasted gay Morehouse students for not looking manly enough.  Per Gaynor's column: "I’m all for being who you are. If you like women, go on and date women. If you like men, be my guest and date men. But if you are born a man, you should be just that — a man. If I have to look twice to tell if I’m looking at a man or woman on an all male campus, then something is tragically wrong...I’m not saying that having gay students at this institution damages the image of Morehouse, but as the only all male African American liberal arts college in America, we have a certain image to uphold and a man with hair weave just isn’t it."  We're not exactly sure what Gaynor was thinking when he wrote this column, but the column certainly doesn't seem to follow Morehouse's mission of fostering academically superior, morally conscious leaders.

California:  Finally, some great news coming out of California.  Yesterday, activists from around the state descended on Sacramento to lobby state legislators to pass a resolution that endorses legal efforts to overturn Proposition 8.  Their work has had some initial success, as California's Assembly Judiciary Committee voted 7-3 in favor of the resolution that puts on the record that California's State Assembly believes Proposition 8 was an invalid revision of the State Constitution.  A similar measure is due to be proposed in the California State Senate.  Oral arguments on Proposition 8 will begin on March 5.