In the Name of Family Values

Utah State Senator Chris Buttars is a special kind of bigot. A steadfast champion of "Family Values", he will do anything, it seems to guarantee that gay people suffer, even if that means damaging the financial well-being of the sick and elderly.

"Melanie Schertz's father died two years ago on Friday the 13th - under a full moon.
The death left her mother, who suffers from Parkinson's and fibromyalgia, with no insurance and a monthly medicine tab of $400.

Fortunately, Salt Lake City's adult-designee ordinance allowed Schertz - a single mom who works as a capital crime-lab tech - to insure her 65-year-old mother and housemate.
"If that's gone, we're going to lose everything," Schertz says. "We would end up losing our home."

Enter Chris Buttars:

"Now, like the bad omen that befell her father, a bill in the Legislature looms over her family's financial security. Designed to eradicate Mayor Ralph Becker's newly adopted domestic-partnership registry, SB267 also would kill the city's adult-designee provision.
Drafted by West Jordan's conservative Sen. Chris Buttars, the bill is intended to block benefits for same-sex couples."

But Salt Lake City's domestic-partnership registry provides an important benefit for many.

"...according to the city, 78 percent of city employees who use the adult-designee program are not gay. What's more, 10 percent use the provision for their mothers.
"It's not just a gay thing," Schertz says. "It's helping people who are financially dependent on each other to be able to survive. We're not destroying the morality of the world."

You just don't get any more mean-spirited than Chris Buttars.


Whole story here.