The ugly baby bill

April may be the cruelest month, but for Utah State Senator Chris Buttars, February is shaping up to be the stupidest. Having launched the month by introducing a bill intended to shut down a city civil partnership registry that might allow homosexuals some of the same rights afforded to married heterosexuals, Buttars upped his far-right ante with a bill that would strip the public’s access to police misconduct records. Before he could garner too much criticism on that front, Buttars book-ended his bigotry by referring to a bill he disapproved of as a “black baby.”

Taking his cue from fellow Republican Senator Howard Stephenson, who referred to a bill aimed at equalizing school funding across the state as “the ugly baby bill,” Buttars told legislators that the baby was not only ugly, but that “this baby is black.” In case there was any doubt left as to his not being the bill’s father, Buttars added, “It is a dark, ugly thing.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, some took the comments, spoken by a man who once said desegregation of public schools was “wrong to begin with,” as racist.

Buttars quickly issued an apology, saying his comments might “reasonably be understood as offensive.”

by SCOTT SAXON