Buttars wants to prohibit gay clubs

Two months after a gay-straight alliance club started meeting at Provo High, a state senator said he plans to run a bill in the 2006 Legislature that would prohibit such clubs in Utah's public high schools.

Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, already taking on the public school establishment with legislation to require schools to teach a religion-based alternative to the theory of evolution, is now aiming at high school gay-straight alliances as well. His effort is backed by the conservative Utah Eagle Forum.

"I'm concerned about gay clubs," Buttars said Wednesday, a day after opening a bill file regarding extra-curricular clubs. Buttars said his goal is to ban gay student associations from meeting on public school property.

"In my mind, if you are in the chess club, what do you talk about? Chess," Buttars said. "If you are in the dance club, what do you talk about? Dance. If you are in a gay club, what do you talk about? I just don't believe members of sexual orientation clubs should be sanctioned by the public schools — what they are talking about even a part of the public schools. They should not be allowed to have that on school property at all. It's just wrong."

Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka says Buttars' bill would simply clarify existing law, which curtails what can and can't be said in terms of sexuality in public school health classes, school clubs and even surveys. And it certainly leaves no room for a school club that on its face indicates sexuality.

"That's talking about the sex the people involved practice . . . clearly violating the law," Ruzicka said. "We're looking at the law saying, what do we need to do to help the districts? Most of the districts don't want the clubs. . . . Provo certainly wouldn't have a club if it didn't have this fear (of lawsuits) hanging over its head . . . (or) if it were up to parents."

Buttars' bill would tweak Utah law to make that more clear, Ruzicka said.

But opponents say Buttars is wasting his time and taxpayer dollars — should the bill pass — defending an act that would be struck down in the courts.

"Oh, that silly Sen. Buttars," said Dani Eyer, executive director of the Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "What would we do without him? He just doesn't have a nuanced concept of constitutionally mandated fairness and freedoms."

"Why do this now?" asks Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake, an attorney and one of two openly gay Utah legislators. "My gosh, the East High School club case was landmark law for the whole country."