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Free Exercise of Religion through T-shirts
Before Chris Buttars is able to push a new bill through the Utah State Legislature, you need to read it, consider the implications, and call your Utah state Senators and Representatives.
Yesterday (Friday, January 19, 2007), Chris Buttars was able to push through the Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee with a favorable recommendation Senate Bill SB-111, “Free Exercise of Religion without Government Interference.” The bill “proposes to protect the free exercise of religion. It requires the state to demonstrate a compelling government interest by clear and convincing evidence to justify substantially burdening a person’s free exercise of religion.” Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Well, maybe it does as he tries to make fuzzy the line separating church and state. It’s what is buried in the bill that is a problem.
- Bill Documents
- Bill Text
- Audio from the Committee Meeting (about minutes 8:57 - 1:02:09–listening to these people talk is just frightening, and you can hear Scott McCoy say he agrees with Gayle Ruzicka.)
He says the bill is about exercise of religion through T-shirts. “He said he is confident his bill would withstand any legal challenge because it was drafted by constitutional experts he declined to identify.” An attorney in the State Office of Education says the bill is unnecessary. She said it’s a training issue rather than a legislative issue. Her office already deals with this issue in professional workshops.
Committee discussion brought up Supreme Court decisions that contradict this. Senator Scott McCoy tried to make it clear to Buttars that he can’t make a law that will supercede federal law, that this is a broad standard he is trying to set. Can’t it be dealt with in the schools rather than to “open up a can of worms.” Why don’t more people question this man? Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says this will certainly mean challenges in state courts (rather than federal courts).
Dave Beuhler, Associate Commissioner of Higher Education had a number of concerns. Why not just take care of this through policy rather than legislation? He and his attorney see greater liability. The attorney says this erodes the protections of government immunity, he points out the application of 11th Amendment immunity would be lost, and “this does open up a real Pandora’s box.” He gets closer to the point: when students are taught evolution, they can claim this puts excessive burden on their religion. The bill puts a “huge evidentiary burden” on the educational institutions. Buttars doesn’t see any of this as a problem, not surprisingly. McCoy points out that this puts the burden not of “fair” reason but of “compelling” reason on the government representatives and institutions.
I would so like these people to be required to undergo diversity training before the attempt to create laws. Over and over they show by their language and their choice of examples that they really haven’t a clue about other peoples and cultures than their own and what they wanted to call “normal” (but were encouraged to call “mainstream”). Their pathetic attempts to “lighten things up” are just embarrassingly unprofessional. And by “they” I mean, primarily, Chris Buttars.
So, if the so-called problem already has many ways to be dealt with through existing policy and administration, why does Buttars want to legislate it? For reasons beyond those he’s listed, undoubtedly. He mentioned in the meeting that it could be used to justify something “a little wild and crazy.” He plans to address whatever comes up in future legislation. It appears that this bill could force his dear Creationism into classrooms. That’s not so wild, but it is crazy.
Archive
January 30th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
[…] Utah’s hostility to religion has inspired his introduction of S.B. 111, a bill in the Utah state Senate in support of the free exercise of religion through T-shirts. The bill has been substituted by another bill, which means they have added, edited, and cleaned it up. But, it’s still there. […]