Buttars loses chairmanships over remarks

A defiant Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, said Friday he won't let his ouster from two key legislative committee chairmanships stop him from defending marriage against "an increasingly vocal and radical segment of the homosexual community."

Earlier Friday, Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, took the unusual step of publicly announcing he was removing Buttars as both chairman and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee

The decision also strips Buttars of his chairmanship of the Senate Judicial Confirmation Committee. Buttars, re-elected last year to a third term, remains chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and vice-chairman of the powerful Rules Committee.

Waddoups said his action should not be seen as a punishment for anti-gay statements Buttars made to a documentary filmmaker, which include comparing gay-rights activists to Muslim terrorists and calling them "the greatest threat to America going down."

The Senate leader said Buttars is considered by his colleagues to be a "stalwart" who "represents the views of many of his constituents and many of ours." Waddoups acknowledged he did not agree with everything Buttars said, but he repeatedly declined to be specific.

Waddoups said taking Buttars off a committee that would likely hear gay-rights bills "will be a freeing mechanism for Sen. Buttars to function, to more fully express his freedom of speech."

Just minutes after Waddoups made his announcement in a room jammed with news media, Buttars was asked by reporters on the Senate floor about the gay community wanting an apology. "Well, they ain't going to get one," he replied.

Told what Buttars had said in response to the request for an apology, Waddoups said, "It sounds to me like he's not going to offer one. I'm not going to tell him how to run his public service."

Buttars also posted a lengthy statement on the Senate majority Web site that said he disagreed with the action taken by Waddoups since committee work "is entirely unrelated to my opposition to the homosexual agenda."

But Buttars said the "action will not discourage me from defending marriage from an increasingly vocal and radical segment of the homosexual community." He said he "would rather be censured for doing what I think is right, than be honored by my colleagues for bowing to the pressure of a special interest group that has been allowed to act with impunity."

At least some of his colleagues said privately they'd hoped for more from Buttars. Many felt after a GOP caucus Thursday that Buttars was seriously considering resigning. One member of his caucus, near tears, said he just wanted to see Buttars apologize from the Senate floor.