Not-so-seasonal greetings

While most families were giving Christmas cheer Thursday, some Utah lawmakers were receiving jeers.

Dozens of protesters from the legislative watchdog group Accountability Utah spent Christmas Day canvassing the neighborhoods of selected lawmakers to turn up the heat in what they see as legislative inaction on reforming the Utah Division of Child and Family Services.

They targeted mostly Democratic lawmakers, handing out fliers in lawmakers' neighborhoods imploring them to call their senator or representative. The fliers listed their lawmakers' names and telephone numbers, saying they have refused to "take meaningful action to help innocent families get their children back, or to restore the rights of all innocent parents — including the right to be tried by a jury of our own peers."

Rep. Pat Jones, D-Cottonwood Heights, was one of eight lawmakers singled out. Others were Sens. Paula Julander, D-Salt Lake; Patrice Arent, D-South Cottonwood; Dan Eastman, R-Bountiful; and Reps. Scott Daniels, D-Salt Lake; Rosalind McGee, D-Salt Lake; David Litvack, D-Salt Lake; and Peggy Wallace, R-West Jordan. Richard Anderson, executive director of DCFS, also made the list.

"We picked (the lawmakers) based on their votes against family rights," said David Hansen, one of the group's organizers. "They have done nothing meaningful and voted for secret courts."

Jones, who refused to confront the protesters outside her home, told the Deseret Morning News that the Christmas Day confrontation was unfortunate.

"I don't like to be defensive. If they have a point to make they have an interesting way to do it on Christmas morning," she said. "Most of us are fighting for kids, and to suggest that any one of us isn't is so disingenuous."

The balance between child welfare and parental rights has been a controversial issue for years in the Legislature. It became an even bigger issue this summer over the Parker Jensen case, where the state and Jensen's parents were at odds over Parker's cancer diagnosis and state-mandated chemotherapy.

Now, some 50 proposed bills dealing with parental rights and child welfare are expected to be introduced in the 2004 Legislature in January.

It wasn't just the Jensen case that brought protesters out Christmas morning.

Richard Mack, a Libertarian candidate for governor, and his wife, Dawn, drove on snowy roads from Provo to Salt Lake City to speak out on the issue.

"I kind of felt like being home with my family on Christmas Day is kind of hypocritical when there are children being taken away from their families," Richard Mack said.