On Feb. 4, I called Sen. Mike Lee’s Salt Lake City office, and an aide answered the phone. Given the recent tear-gassing of small children by ICE/CPB agents in Portland and Minneapolis, I asked if Sen. Lee approves of the tear-gassing of children. The aide’s response is that Sen. Lee has not made an official statement on that subject.
This is what blind support of Donald Trump and his policies has created. Instead of emphatically and without hesitation saying, “Yes, the senator believes that children should not be tear-gassed” and that he believes children should be safe from such harm, the aide answered that he believed that the senator “has not made an official statement.” Does this mean that Sen. Lee thinks that his support of Trump is more important than the safety of children?
What makes this even more egregious is that the children were either exercising their First Amendment rights (and Sen. Lee supposedly cares about the Constitution, which the aide did affirm, despite the fact that Lee has not made an issue of the Trump administration’s repeated violations of the First and Fourth amendments) or the children’s family was caught between protesters and federal agents.
What are we doing in this country if we all cannot agree that children should always be protected? What does it say about the values of people who are unwilling to express that value without there being an “official statement”? How could believing that children should be safe be controversial in any way?
I urge all Utahns to contact Sen. Lee, Sen. Curtis, and their member of Congress, as well as strong Trump-supporter Gov. Cox, to ask if they approve of the tear-gassing of children.
Allyson Mathis, Moab
Donate to the newsroom now. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax deductible