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Loading ...Utah governor: No special rights for gay people
08.27.2009 5:14pm EDT
(Salt Lake City) Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said Thursday that discriminating against gay people shouldn’t be illegal, although he would prefer it if everyone were treated with respect.
In his most definitive comments yet on gay rights, Herbert told reporters he doesn’t believe sexual orientation should be a protected class in the way that race, gender and religion are.“We don’t have to have a rule for everybody to do the right thing. We ought to just do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do and we don’t have to have a law that punishes us if we don’t,” Herbert said in his first monthly KUED news conference.
In Utah, it is legal to fire someone for being gay or transgender. The gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah has been trying to change state law for several years but has always been rebuffed by the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Last year, the group got Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman’s support for extending some rights to gay people, although none of the bills it backed became law.
Huntsman resigned earlier this month to become U.S. ambassador to China, leaving Herbert, who was lieutenant governor, in charge of the state until a special election in 2010.
Will Carlson, Equality Utah’s public policy director, said Herbert’s comments show he doesn’t understand how prevalent discrimination is against gay and transgender people in Utah.
“I agree that we ought to be able to just do the right thing. Unfortunately, the Salt Lake City Human Rights Commission makes it clear that not all employers are doing the right thing,” he said, referencing a city report released earlier this summer that said discrimination was rampant.
Salt Lake City is considering an anti-discrimination ordinance, but conservative state lawmakers already are eyeing passage of a state law that would trump it.
Herbert reserved judgment on the ordinance until he’s had a chance to read it, but said he doesn’t like the idea of protected classes in general.
“Where do you stop? I mean that’s the problem going down that slippery road. Pretty soon we’re going to have a special law for blue-eyed blondes … or people who are losing their hair a little bit,” Herbert said. “There’s some support for about anything we put out there. I’m just saying we end up getting bogged down sometimes with the minutiae of things that government has really no role to be involved in.”
Carlson said he wants to arrange a meeting with Herbert to help him understand the problems gay Utahns face.
“We don’t have an epidemic of blonde-haired, blue-eyed people getting fired or evicted. We do have a situation where gay and transgender people are being evicted and losing their jobs, not for job performance, but because they’re gay or transgender,” he said.
It’s time to MAJORLY pfuque with the Mormon Pagan Fertility Cult and Money Machine by any and all legal means, including DAILY protests on Temple Square.
AND, some intrepid reporter needs to investigate the aversion therapy (aka “torture”) that was going on under the guise of “science” at Brigham Young “University” (another Mormon cookie-cutter machine, producing brainwashed little Mormons to go forth and procreate like mad to out-populate the “gentiles”).
The Mormons, the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the Southern Baptists and (some if not most) Evangelical Protestants are the greatest threat to our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness in these United States.
Bud Burgoon-Clark
San Diego, CA USA
The frustrating thing about this line of reasoning is that it really doesn’t cost much to the state to put an ENDA law in place. Make a law, announce it broadly, and most corporations will get in line, because they don’t want lawsuits from gay people eating up their profits.
It hasn’t been that big a deal–from a financial and implementation standpoint–in the states that have this law. When you factor that in, he just looks either lazy or more interested in being philosophically pure than helping real people with real-life problems.
If the governor really wanted respect for “everybody” he would have supported this legislation. He’s talking out of both sides of his mouth. And I’d like to see the day when a blue eyed blond hair person would ever be discriminated against, hogwash!
I don’t think any gay person is asking for “special rights”. We all just want the same rights as everyone else in this country. In a place where its legal to fire someone for being gay, you can’t tell me there is even an attempt at equality.
If it is legal to fire someone for being gay, it should be legal to fire someone for being straight. Thankfully gay business owners as a whole are a little more open minded than that. I can’t think of the last time a straight person was fired from a gay owned business simply because they were straight.
Yes, we need not protect gays and lesbians. We do need to protect religion, though, because it’s obviously not a choice.
You’re all so jaded.
I agree with Herbert!
Let’s get rid of all laws! People will do the right thing on their own. And your neighbors will be glad to help you with any large projects you can’t complete on your own.
Every time Utah Gov. Gary Herbert speaks shit comes out of his mouth!!!!!
We don’t have to punish people who don’t do the right thing?
This is a reality for this guy?
That’s right up there with Obamarama’s ridiculous: Let’s not look at the past, let’s just look forward.
Gee…don’t ALL criminals wish that was the rule of the day or what?
Governor Herbert needs to realize that LGBT people are not seeking special rights. We seek equal rights: nothing more and nothing less. While I support protection for people on the basis of religion, it must also be noted that religion, unlike sexual orientation, gender or race is a free choice. If he does not believe sexual orientation, which is not a choice, does not deserve protection, then why should religion be considered a protected class?
I want Governor Huntsman back.
Also, I’m not very fond of the “let Utah rot” comments I keep seeing. There are a lot of gay people living in Utah (many of whom are or were raised Mormon), and they need all our help. Not help to leave or to abandon their roots, but help to advance their rights and dignity where they live. Have some compassion. What gay rights developments happen in Utah (and other places where challenges are greater) actually matter the most of all.
If you look closely at Governor Herbert’s head you will notice two very small horns protruding from under the hair line just above his forehead. I wonder what that signifies?
Gov. Herbert proves by this statement that his arrogance is exceeded only by his ignorance.
If it is such an inconvenience – then it is a protection that should not be in place for anyone at all.
Pompous ass.
This is no surprise. Utah isn’t so much a state as it is an asylum for the wacky and purposefully uninformed. The government of Utah is just a shill for the Mormon cult. I intend never to visit the place or to purchase anything from there. I wish others would follow-suit.
yet another crowing reactionary reich-wing f*ck.
Here’s why GOV HERBERT: This comment from rickreed is under the article on NOM(e.e.g Mormon Money) now fighting Marriage Equality in IOWA.
It fits here as well, hope you don’t mind rick.
“I just attended the marriage of my son and his partner in Montreal. It was a beautiful, joyous day. What really struck me about this day was that it was the first gay marriage I had ever been to. Apart from being the father of the groom and the person who officiated at the couple’s ceremony (a great, great honor…a high point in my life!), I was struck by one thing for this “big gay wedding:” and that was not that it was so unusual or so different. No, what struck me was that it was so like every other wedding I’ve ever been to. Here were two young people, bubbling over with love for one another and who wanted to pledge their lives to one another, who looked forward with great optimism to a shared future. That was pretty much the same as all the weddings I’ve been to. And here were the happy families and friends, their eyes maybe a little blurred by watching two people they cared about make their commitment public and asking for their support throughout the coming years. There was a wedding cake. Dancing. Champagne (and some wonderful dark rum imported from Cuba–another very sensible thing legal in Canada but not here!). Laughter. Simply, there was a palpable sense of caring, joy, and the feeling that something important had happened that hot August day.
And how could that be any different from any other wedding?
After being a part of this, I wonder even more how there are hordes of people out there who would deny my son his happiness, deny him the same rights that they enjoy and benefit from…and why? Why, when there are so many ills, hatred, crime, and suffering in the world, would large groups of people invest so much time, energy, and resources into ensuring a young couple in love can not make a commitment to one another? A commitment that, indeed, I am forbidden to make to my own partner.
I don’t know. I really don’t.”