Utah Governor Takes Heat for Pro-Gay Stance
Utah governor John Huntsman indicated that he supported civil unions, prompting anti-gay state Senator Chris Buttars to circulate a statement among state lawmakers to the effect that family equality for GLBT citizens "would threaten marriage and religious freedom."
The governor subsequently retreated from the public arena, scrubbing a press conference and relocating meetings to the governor's mansion, according to a Feb. 12 article at the Deseret News, which also said that Lisa Roskelley, spokesperson for Huntsman, told the press that most of the calls and emails being received by the governor's office expressed gratitude for his support of some measure of family equality.
However, the article also said that Roskelley would not say whether the governor had been targeted with threatening messages as well as thanks.
The anti-gay statement was created by family equality opposition organization the Marriage Law Foundation.
Buttars, a Republican state senator, circulated the anti-gay statement among state legislators, but not to the governor, the article said.
Buttars also refused to talk about the statement with the press, save to say, "It's very well written."
The governor remains open to talking about the issue, according to Roskelley.
Said the spokesperson, "This is a democracy. Everybody has a right to speak out on their position, and the governor has."
Added Roskelley, "He'll talk to people about it. He's inviting a community dialogue."
The spokesperson also sought to dispel runors that Huntsman had hopes of attracting the attention of the President, with an eye to a spot in the new administration.
The article said that Huntsman speaks Mandarin, and had been considered by other administrations for an ambassadorial appointment; Huntsman has also served as a diplomat under Republican presidents and has already been an ambassador to Singapore.
Said Roskelly, "The governor is happy being governor and he's not seeking any post."
The article noted that the canceled news conference was to have addressed health care reform, and that Huntsman also called off a weekly lunch meeting with state Republicans, though he did meet separately with the state House Speaker and the state Senate President, both Republicans.
Senate President Michael Waddoups was quoted saying that the governor had told him, "'I've always felt that way.
"'I've stated my position before and this is the first time it's been publicized,'" the Senate President continued quoting the governor.
According to Waddoups, the governor did not intend for civil unions to serve as gay marriage by another name, but rather to allow non-married couples, whether straight or gay, to access some protections.
The article noted that four years ago Huntsman had promoted a "reciprocal benefits" bill, which was defeated in the state Senate.
Waddoups indicated that he had signed the anti-gay statement, which was drafted by Bill Duncan.
The article quoted Duncan as saying, "If [Governor Huntsman] doesn't mean he wants to create something that is exactly the same as a marriage with a different name for same-sex couples," then that "is clearly significantly less controversial."
Added Duncan, "A lot of people feel comfortable with that."
Democratic state Senator Scott McCoy, the only openly gay member of the state Senate, was quoted as saying that the anti-gay statement being circulated by Buttars "seems like political theater to me."
McCoy had introduced the so-called "Common Ground" bill, which did not clear a Senate committee.
However, the governor's statement may be far less controversial among the electorate than among Utah legislators: the article cited vice chairman of the state GOP, Todd Weiler, as saying that as far as he knew, only one caller to the state Republican Party had expressed any negative feedback about Huntsman's support for some measure of family parity.
The "Common Ground" initiative was the focus recently of full-page advertisements in the Sunday editions of Salt Lake area newspapers, reported the Utah blog Drinking Liberally on Feb. 15.
The blog's text read, "The ad is full of lies and fear tactics and it's scary that there are people that believe this.
"My first instinct was to laugh because it seems like it should be bad satire, but this group seems legit."
The group that took out the ads was America Forever; the ads echoed the tack recently used by proponents of the anti-family equality California ballot initiative Proposition 8, which told voters that unless consenting adults saw their right to marry revoked, school children as young as Kindergarten would be forced to learn about gay families.
Similarly, the ads in the Utah newspapers warned that the initiative would "validate homosexuality to the children," and went on to reiterate long-promulgated claims that granting gay and lesbian families the same, or similar, rights to those enjoyed by heterosexuals would result in gays becoming an "untouchable class."
Warned the advertisements, "Gays will have MORE RIGHTS than anyone else" if they should ever be treated before the law in the same manner as heterosexuals.
"This is not about hate or civil rights," read one sentence in large type, while another next to it declared, "Homosexuality is NOT A RACE!"
Presumably, the point of that sentence was to indicate that race-based discrimination is not comparable to prejudice against gays and lesbians.
The full-page ads by America Forever accuse "homosexual activist groups" of running advertisements of their own designed to "coerce" the Mormon church into supporting the initiative.
The Mormon church sought to defuse criticisms for its vigorous support of Proposition 8 by issuing statements to the effect that the church was "not anti-gay" and would support other forms of support for same-sex families.
The ads in question, bought by GLBT equality groups, referenced the words of the church's own leadership in hopes of seeing those words validated through action.
The America Forever ads called this an attempt "to coerce and intimidate the church to... validate and endorse homosexual conduct."
The ad further declared that, "Consciencely [sic], they are using the LDS church's statements as a shield to numb the public conscience of their duty and rights.
"This is another outrageous act and public shame and another attempt of the gay activists in trying to silence those who oppose their lifestyles or their sexual conduct," the ad continued."
In one ad, a boxed section to the side read, "This is the reality of the gay movement," adding, "The Homosexual Declaration of War, read in the US House of Representatives in July 27 1987 reads, 'We will sodomize your children. All churches who condemn us will be closed. The family unit eliminated. Any man contaminated with heterosexual lust, will automatically be barred from any position of influence.'"
The text did not attribute authorship or provenance for this purported quotation, nor did it specify who had read it on the floor the House of Representatives or why it was read aloud.
Elsewhere, the ad declared, "Overwhelmingly, the gay agenda is liberal, godless, and very outspoken."
The ad continued, "Therefore, if we don't support their agenda, we need to be as outspoken and as straightforward as they are."
The ad went on, "Moreover, they are intolerant, and do not emulate any Christian Ethics."
"Stand up and help!"
One way in which readers might do so?
"Donate for more ads in the newspaper," encouraged the text.