Buttars Comments

(Read background on gay rights bills below before reading) How did Senator Buttars get re-elected? I know it was narrow, but who voted for this guy? Last year during an argument in the Senate over a school-funding bill he said, "This baby is black . . . It's a dark, ugly thing." Buttars says it wasn't meant to be racist, but come on. Now while gay-rights bills are being debated, he is interviewed for a documentary and calls the gay-rights movement "probably the greatest threat to America," likened gay activists to Muslim radicals and dubbed same-sex relationships "abominations." I understand that people have the right to free speech, and that is why he was only kicked off his committee seat rather than kicked out of the senate, but this whole debate has gone too far. At least he didn't say his comments while he was in his role as a legislator, but still. I have been in these meetings where legislators say that they have been getting hate mail for those in support and opposition, calling the gay people fagots, and calling others homophobes. Why do we have to have so much anger and hatred on both sides of this argument? It isn't going to get anyone anywhere. Did the vandalism after Prop 8 get anyone anywhere, or do anything. No. Why should anyone, let alone a Senator speak out in this way? Make a point, tell us the reasoning behind it, be civilized. That is the only way anyone on either side of the debate is going to understand each other. In covering these issues for my job I have to remain neutral and I think it helped me to see the other side of things more clearly. If you feel you understand the other side and still feel the way you do that's fine, but I think that if people strived to at least understand the other side, they wouldn't be able to say hateful things about them.