Jean Welch Hill on Senator Buttars

2008 Democratic Attorney General Candidate Jean Welch Hill on Senator Buttars and the Utah Senate Leadership:

After watching the latest shenanigans in the Utah Senate, and the sheer boredom with which the president of that body dealt with comments of extreme hatred by one of its members, I stand appalled.Utah once welcomed the world and now tells a group of people "we hate you and we will applaud anyone in a position of power who will encourage further harassment and hatred against you." I am amazed at the audacity of our state Senate leadership who stand "foursquare" behind a fellow senator who compares people seeking equal rights to terrorists. I am stunned at the hypocrisy of this same group insisting on protecting the First Amendment rights of that senator while regularly seeking to prohibit protesters on the Capitol grounds and running bills to punish others who tried to exercise those same rights. How can people who claim to be the arbiters of what is decent in this state engage in such gross acts of indecency? Yes, everyone has the right to speak there mind, but that doesn't mean the senate can't seek to raise the bar on public discourse by sending its members a clear message that the body will NOT stand behind hate speech.