This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Brigham Young University's Daily Universe published a letter in its opinion section online Tuesday criticizing arguments presented by Proposition 8 supporters during last year's ballot campaign.
Writer Cary Crall, a BYU pre-med student, wrote about his concerns that the arguments presented during the campaign were absent during the court battle in which a judge overturned the results of the proposition election that would have banned gay marriage in California.
"The question remains that if proponents of Prop 8 were both unwilling and unable to support even one rational argument in favor of the amendment in court, why did they seek to present their arguments as rational during the campaign?" asked Crall, a returned Mormon missionary.
"It is time for LDS supporters of Prop 8 to be honest about their reasons for supporting the amendment," he wrote. "The real reason is that a man who most of us believe is a prophet of God told us to support the amendment."
Then, just as Crall's letter was beginning to get attention, The Daily Universe pulled a magic act worthy of a tenured Hogwarts professor.
Poof!
It disappeared.
Edward Carter, The Daily Universe's faculty adviser, said in a prepared statement the paper "made an independent decision to remove the student viewpoint titled 'Defending Proposition 8' after being alerted by various readers that the content of the editorial was offensive. The publication of this viewpoint was not intended to offend, but after further review we recognized that it contained offensive content."
But Crall, in an interview on the popular Mormon blog bycommonconsent.com, said he had been receiving "a lot of positive feedback from former church members who said they were impressed with BYU and the Daily Universe for being willing to publish my letter."
Oops.
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The prosecution rests • I mentioned in Wednesday's column that Jean Hill, an attorney at the State Office of Education, received an invitation on her government e-mail address to "an intimate reception" at the New Yorker Wine Cellar to raise money for the re-election of Salt Lake County District Attorney Lohra Miller.
Attorneys in Miller's office, it turns out, also received the invitation in their government e-mail inboxes.
That could be a problem, given Section 1.5 of Salt Lake County's Human Resources Policy and Procedure ordinance: "No employee may engage in any political activity during the hours of employment nor shall any person solicit political contributions from county employees during hours of employment for political purposes." Violations could result in a Class B misdemeanor charge.
But Miller said when her campaign hired an independent fundraiser to put on the event, she gave the contractor specific instructions not to send the invitation to government e-mail addresses. She said she now has instructed the fundraiser to send out a second e-mail to those addresses withdrawing the invitation and apologizing for it.
Guess it's just hard to find good help these days.
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Oh, those funny guys • If you log on to utahdemocrats.org thinking you will find information about the Democratic Party, you instead get the campaign website for Morgan Philpot, the Republican challenger to 2nd District Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson.
If you log on to utahdemocrats.com, you get the site of 2008 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
The actual Utah Democratic Party site is utdemocrats.org.