Before the package of gay rights bills called the Common Ground Initiative died at the Legislature last week, Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka sent an e-mail to her troops commanding them to fill the seats at the committee hearings on those bills and lobby legislators hard to ensure the bills' quick death.
"We have never seen a time when the homosexual community has been as aggressive and as committed to an objective as they are now," wrote Ruzicka, sounding eerily similar to the doomsday rhetoric of a certain state senator.
"Every seat not taken by us in the committee room will be filled by those supporting these radical homosexual bills," she added.
Then she cemented her message with a post script:
"I would like to share some scriptures in the (LDS) Doctrine and Covenants that have great meaning and comfort to me. In section 101 verses 86-95, the Lord gives us some lobbying instructions, starting with local government and working our way up through the state and federal government. We are told after we importune at the feet of our elected officials and they heed not (a righteous message) the Lord will arise and come forth and vex the nation and in His time will cut off those wicked, unfaithful, and unjust stewards, and appoint them their portion among hypocrites, and unbelievers. He also mentions outer darkness, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."
No wonder Eagle Forum lobbyists command such attention from our legislators.
When Ruzicka is sitting in those committee meetings, glaring at the lawmakers, the unspoken message delivered through her intense stare must be that if they don't heed her warnings, their skin will fall off, and their eyes will pop out and their souls will linger eternally in a dark abyss.
Who needs Jazz tickets when you have that kind of lobbying muscle?
Time for revenge? » Rep Sheryl Allen, R-Bountiful, is sponsoring HB14, which would decrease the penalty for minors who send obscene pictures of themselves to peers through their cell phones from a 3rd degree felony to a misdemeanor. The idea is that it would increase reporting of the practice, so the offenders could get counseling. It is heavily endorsed by law enforcement and prosecutors, and it passed the House 74-0.
But it's been sitting in the Senate Rules Committee for nearly a month.
Same for Allen's HJR1, which is an anti-gambling resolution.
Gee, the burying of those bills wouldn't have anything to do with Allen's role in bringing ethics complaints against conservative darlings Mark Walker and Greg Hughes last year, would it?
