I figured it would take me a few months until I would know just how badly I missed Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., but then I also figured that it would take then-Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert a few months until he would do or say something worrisome. I was wrong.
I don’t know why it is that Utahns seem so fond of consistently coming up on the wrong side of social issues, but with Herbert’s recent declaration that people should not receive the same protection from discrimination for sexual orientation as people do for race, religion or gender, it seems that this trend will continue.
It’s not necessarily Herbert’s stance that bothers me; quite frankly it didn’t surprise me. It’s more that I worry that he’s actually much more extreme on this subject than he’s letting on. Although he made it clear that he opposes granting protection from discrimination to people for sexual orientation, after that, his message became a bit more muddled.
“We don’t have to have a rule for everybody to do the right thing,” Herbert recently told reporters. “We ought to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Where do you stop? That’s the problem going down that slippery road. Pretty soon we’re going to have a special law for blue-eyed blondes.”
I don’t know about anyone else, but when I heard this statement, I could only think, “Huh?”
What exactly is the governor trying to say here? I think he needs to explain his point in more detail. This is not a knee-jerk statement. He had thought of this point before going into the KUED conference where he said it. It’s not an uncommon argument to hear coming from conservatives who like to argue that if we begin granting equal rights to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community that it can only end in one place8212;some type of nightmare full of sultry leather pants and rainbow feather boas.
Herbert’s argument here makes no sense. First of all, to the best of my knowledge, people aren’t being denied jobs, apartments or other basic civil rights because of their hair color. There is no need to even discuss legislation protecting people for such things because no such discrimination exists.
I am not interested in hearing where he thinks the road leads when it comes to gay rights, but rather where does the road for equal rights begin? We are seeing discrimination against people for sexual orientation in the news on a fairly regular basis. The problem exists and it will likely only get worse unless we take progressive steps to address it.
We are talking about discrimination here, not giving a group the right to wield power over someone else. The American ideal holds that if blue-eyed blondes were being discriminated against, you darn well better believe we would protect their basic civil rights.
Herbert would do well to look to his predecessor as an example. Huntsman knew that there was a need for protection against discrimination for the LGBT community because he accepted that it was occurring across the state, and he supported legislative measures to accomplish it. Herbert needs to take a step back and answer the question: If it’s not unacceptable discrimination now, when will it become so?
