Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
As my longtime readers know, I have an informal running contest going for the title of the looniest state legislator in the country. It began with Gerald Allen in Alabama submitting a bill to ban all books by and about gay people from the entire state. Then came Warren Chisum sending a memo to all of his colleagues in the Texas legislature urging them to visit fixedearth.com, a geocentrist site that not only claims that Galileo and Copernicus were wrong but that evolution is a Jewish plot to destroy Christ. And we can't forget Sally Kern of Oklahoma, who has been on quite a roll lately herself. But Chris Buttars of Utah has apparently been reading my blog and knows that Kern threatens to knock him off the pedestal, so he is redoubling his efforts to say egregiously idiotic things. Here's the latest:
Sen. Chris Buttars considers the gay-rights movement -- nationally and in Utah -- "probably the greatest threat to America."In an interview with documentary filmmaker Reed Cowan, released by KTVX Ch. 4 on Tuesday night, Buttars said the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community doesn't want "equality, they want superiority."
"It's the beginning of the end. Oh, it's worse than that. Sure. Sodom and Gomorrah was localized. This is worldwide," the West Jordan Republican said in the interview...
Buttars also compared gay activists to Muslim terrorists.
You tell 'em, Chris. It's gonna take more than one cranky old broad from Oklahoma to knock you off the top of Jerk Mountain.
Politics
Comments
It looks like he is plagiarizing Sally Kearns too -- isn't "the gays are more dangerous than terrorists" her line?
Posted by: Chris A | February 19, 2009 9:32 AM
Economic meltdown, global warming, nuclear proliferation, food/water security & mass extinctions. Nah let's concentrate all our best brains of the number one problem...
gays in Utah. [head -> desk]-DJ
PS Can we please use Chris Buttar's (heh heh, I said "butt") real name CAPTAIN CHAOS!
Posted by: DingoJack | February 19, 2009 9:55 AM
Chris Buttars, of "mormon gulag" fame? A real nice guy...
Posted by: Christophe Thill | February 19, 2009 10:06 AM
Remember Sally Kern has no religious "freedom" until gays have no freedom whatsoever. Somehow I don't think that Oklahoma's most famous Bircher even knows what freedom is.
Posted by: a lurker | February 19, 2009 10:27 AM
In an interview with documentary filmmaker Reed Cowan, released by KTVX Ch. 4 on Tuesday night, Buttars said the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community doesn't want "equality, they want superiority."
Clearly a lie. It's my experience Senator, that most people at least like to occasionally switch positions. Even Hetero's! What do you say to that, Senator?
Posted by: J-Dog | February 19, 2009 10:29 AM
C'mon, guys - would you use an airport restroom knowing that Chris Buttars was in the next stall?
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | February 19, 2009 10:32 AM
I think Bachman remains in the top spot after she declared we are running out of rich people.
Posted by: yoshi | February 19, 2009 12:13 PM
You know it's bad when even Utah's Fox13 is reporting that Buttars is lying:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veDhoeyAn18
Posted by: Chino Blanco | February 19, 2009 12:51 PM
"C'mon, guys - would you use an airport restroom knowing that Chris Buttars was in the next stall?"
Absolutely, Pierce. With my camera phone out and ready to take video of his wide stance, foot tapping, and most especially the funny look on his face when he came out. Of the stall, that is.
Posted by: BobApril | February 19, 2009 1:20 PM
Man! I can't get that South Park jingle out of my head:
"Everything is better with Butters!
That's me!"
Posted by: Chrioptera | February 19, 2009 1:22 PM
Worst state legislator should be more original, or has it been a slow week. The "gays are worse than terrorists" originated with Gary Bauer not Sally Kern.
Posted by: Bill in NC | February 19, 2009 2:58 PM
re the link at February 19, 2009 12:51 PM:
That news video should be what gets Buttars put back atop the list, maybe forever. His response to quotes being leaked from an interview for a frickin' movie was: 'but they promised me no one would know what I said!'
Posted by: Lee | February 19, 2009 3:18 PM
Let's see: where else did they attempt to rescind voting and property rights, then assert that no action taken against this group was, in fact, criminal?
Oh, yeah. I remember.
As a Black woman, I remember my parents and their friends talking about Loving v. Virginia--and how white people had used the Bible ("unequally yoked" et al) to proclaim the rightness of their anti-miscegenation laws...and the same Bible for proof that slavery was a good thing for African people ("slaves be obedient to your masters as if they were god").
If white Christians could ever own up to how very wrong they've been in using the Bible's millennia-old stories to support present-day bigotry, (1) they'd be better Christians and (2) they'd cut it out.
Here's what I really want to know (indelicate language warning here): Do we need "niggers"--people we can use whatever harebrained proofs we can conjure to make wrong...and then publicly scorn and strip rights from? Understanding that Blacks in Africa weren't "niggers" until white slavers needed us to be seen that way (so we would be more malleable) and be seen that way (so they could feel justified by their barbarism)? Since the elimination of slavery and the long-tailed end of American apartheid, we've seen a host of the newly-niggerized...the Hmong, Koreans, Mexicans....
It makes me wonder whether our country only works when we have "niggers" to vent our spleens on, excoriate in church and in the town's square and tantalize with the rights that come with full citizenship.
I really wonder.
Posted by: Lalita | February 19, 2009 3:49 PM
Lalita
Seems so to me.
Posted by: kamaka | February 19, 2009 5:05 PM
It could be worse. I keep flashing on Butters' YouTube sensation, "What What (In the Butt)"
Of course I couldn't take Chris Buttars any less seriously. So no harm really.
Posted by: Abby Normal | February 19, 2009 5:19 PM
Scapegoats are useful in all societies, especially when things are bad.
Ed, thanks for reminding us in the UK that our politicians aren't insane. Alas, they still remain incompetent (and frequently corrupt).
Posted by: MH | February 19, 2009 5:28 PM
Buttars might be the king of Jerk Mountain, but the spiel about homosexuality being the root cause of all of America's problems is sadly common fodder for the voting public.
For sheer loony, though, Geocentric-Christ-whacking is where it's at.
Posted by: Brother Dave Thompson | February 19, 2009 6:08 PM
Our Senate President in Utah does not understand why Buttars is being judged on his position on the issues. If his actions were not as evil as his rhetoric, one might be a kinder judge.
Posted by: Chris P | February 19, 2009 6:47 PM
If you think these legislators are bad, you should see their constituents. :\
Posted by: LightningRose | February 20, 2009 1:12 PM
Apparently Buttars' comments were too much for even his fellow Republicans.
He's been stripped of his chairmanship of the state Senate Judicary Committee.
http://www.abc4.com/mostpopular/story/UPDATE-Buttars-removed-as-judicial-chair/IILwSdmubEeN6_vV0I83XQ.cspx
Posted by: Tony | February 21, 2009 2:37 PM
Another reason to show Chris some deserved love: Back in the early part of 2008, when expanding on how much Republican Howard Stephenson hated school funding bill SB48 (Stephenson called it an "ugly baby bill"), Buttars proudly proclaimed that "This baby is black. It's a dark, ugly thing."
I guess that his recent comments makes gay people new black babies...only with a different sense of style?
Leave him on the top of the heap for a while...or at least leave his noggin on a pike.
Posted by: Lalita Amos | May 1, 2009 8:51 PM
Oops! Here's the clip of Sen. Buttars likening a disagreeable house bill to a black baby: http://www.truveo.com/Chris-Buttars-Black-Baby-Quote/id/108086434557155479. Should have included it in the previous comment.
Posted by: Lalita Amos | May 1, 2009 8:58 PM