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The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

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Want your voice to be heard? Submit a letter to the editor, send us an op-ed pitch or check out our open positions for the chance to be published by the Daily Utah Chronicle.
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The ‘gay agenda’ is real

I hate it when despicable people make respectable arguments.

I’ve never liked Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, but I found myself rooting for him as he defended House Bill 236 on gay clubs in Utah schools during an interview with Doug Fabrizio on March 7.

Like the despicable person he is, he kept arguing that the real intent of the bill was to give principals and parents control over student activities. It took a lot of pressure from the interviewer to make him say that the real reason was to keep the “gay agenda” out of high schools.

When asked if that wasn’t homophobic, he replied to the effect of, “I’m not afraid of gay people; I just want them to keep their sexuality private.” When asked what the “gay agenda” was, he said it was to normalize homosexuality in the public realm.

At this point I began cheering for him. I know a lot of my friends would have been disappointed with me, but for once I heard a politician speak the truth without fear.

Gay rights activists often mock the notion of a “gay agenda” in the same breath that they define it. The “gay agenda,” i.e., the goal of gays everywhere, is to have sexual orientation be regarded as a legitimate minority in the political sphere the same way race minorities and people with disabilities are regarded. Gays everywhere will read that and say, “Absolutely, it’s a human rights issue.”

When Buttars says he opposes that, it sounds to some people like he’s in favor of tyranny, persecution and oppression. But as he said, he doesn’t have a problem with gay people, he has a problem with homosexuality being normalized in the public realm.

I guess some people will think I’m a bigot too, but I don’t believe in defining people based on sexual categories.

In the past, the government intruded into people’s private lives to punish sexual practices it disapproved of. I agree that progress has been made. But now it seems that people want to push their private lives into the public realm. I don’t see that as progress. I see it as distasteful and inappropriate.

My sexuality is nobody else’s business. My wife and I had a son last January, so I guess it’s obvious, but I consider that part of my life to be private and I safeguard it vigorously. I don’t want to know about anybody else’s sexuality — whether it be hetero-, homo- or asexual — because I don’t believe it belongs in the public sphere any more than the government belongs in the bedroom.

Some activists regret that sex is focused on when equal rights is the real issue. But I believe that their definition of “equal rights” would have been achieved years ago if they’d never mentioned sex.

Look at some of the issues tackled by the “gay agenda:” the right to have anybody you want visit you at your deathbed, inherit your property, take custody of your children and join your health-care plan.

Those are no-brainers that would garner universal support. The opposition comes when they say they want the right for their gay lover to inherit their property, take custody of their children and join their health-care plan.

No one would care what they did with their money, children and benefits if they kept the nature of their relationships to themselves!

But they shouldn’t have to, it’s said. Public opinion should change, it’s said. But that opinion is based upon religious texts that have been the ethical and moral foundations of civilization for thousands of years. Exactly, it’s said, the Bible and Quran are outdated and primitive.

What gay activists are really asking is for reason, instead of God, to be the basis for decision-making. That sounds completely logical to them. But what they do not understand is that believers distrust logic and reason because they are products of culture.

The Nazis thought they had reason on their side, and so did both the Russian and Chinese communists who rejected religion and ended up killing about 10 times the number of people.

It is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect believers to quit relying on God and scripture as the basis of their moral judgments. If any progress is to be made on the “gay agenda,” it must be done with the permission of the religious. The religious have no problem with “equal rights,” but they have a big problem with sexuality in the public sphere. If “gay” were kept private and only “rights” were fought for, people might be surprised by what gets accomplished.

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