Looks like Utah is the Goofus to Michigan’s Gallant. Gallant Michigan’s House Speaker more or less banished a House member for espousing white nationalist nonsense, while Goofus Utah’s House Speaker was out here doing Christian Nationalist nonsense his own self.
THIS ONE! THIS ONE RIGHT HERE!
Last month, Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz spoke at a Christian Nationalist event organized by a fellow House member and hosted by a far-right organization called “Patriot Academy,” all of which sounds a little Timmy McVeigh. Unsurprisingly, this led to a certain amount of criticism, to which his response was that he speaks at lots of events and was there to share his thoughts about “states’ rights.”
“It’s no secret that I’m passionate about states’ rights and appreciate efforts made to push back on the federal government’s overreach,” Schultz said in a text message to the Salt Lake Tribune. “Rep. Ken Ivory invited me to speak on federalism and provide my perspective. I’m invited to speak at numerous events by countless of organizations each year and always appreciate the opportunity to share my insight.”
He’s just really popular, okay? He can’t be bothered to see if the event he’s speaking at is held by people who want to turn our nation into a theocracy.
Fair! Perhaps! So the Salt Lake Tribune, respecting his busy social schedule, asked him for a copy of his calendar to see what other groups had invited him to speak. And boy, he did not like that.
Following that text exchange, The Tribune submitted an open records request under Utah’s Government Records Access and Management Act — or GRAMA — seeking access to Schultz’s calendar events related to his public role as a legislator.
“The House of Representatives has no records that are responsive to your request,” they replied.
A few days before the claim, House Chief of Staff Abby Osborne requested a meeting with a Tribune reporter about the request for Schultz’s calendar. During that meeting, Osborne said that the speaker’s calendar “is not a public record.”
The Tribune has filed a formal appeal to the House’s decision to deny access to Schultz’s calendar.
So either it’s not a public record (it is, according to the Utah State Records Committee, a public record) or, in an M. Night Shyamalan twist, it doesn’t exist and never existed at all.
The event’s headliner, Rick Green, is the founder of Patriot Academy, which runs “biblical citizenship” training programs in hundreds of churches across the nation, designed to teach children that the founders actually intended for the United States to be a Christian nation, based in Christian values, with no separation of church and state, despite not mentioning that very important thing once ever in any of the founding documents they spent a very long time writing and debating over.
Indeed, if they had intended for that to be the case, there would be no “states’ rights.” How are you going to have that in a theocracy where everyone has to obey your religion? The Founders were also notably not very liberal with the voting rights, so why wouldn’t they have made it the law that only Christians could vote, if that is what they intended? If you have non-Christians voting, there is always gonna be the chance that some laws and statutes are not going to be “Christian.” Hell, even if you do have Christians voting, because #NotAllChristians believe the insane things these people believe. If that’s what they want, nevermind even having a president — it’s Pope or bust.
Just kidding, they’re certainly not going to let Catholics do the governing.
There is a reason why you don’t see a lot of theocracies out there with fabulous human rights records and functioning democracies.
It matters that these are the groups that Mike Schultz is speaking to and palling around with. The people of Utah have a right to know if these are things that Mike Schultz believes. Because quite frankly, I’m not so sure that Mormons would fare all that well in a nation run by evangelicals. There’s beef there.
As repulsive as it is that any state legislator is riding with this bigoted, unconstitutional nonsense, it is even more concerning given that he won’t let anyone see the rest of his calendar. Because whatever it is, it’s probably worse.
PREVIOUSLY:
Nazi punks,
Nazi punks,
Nazi punks,
FUCK OFF.
You have never seen a family fight like the one between my sisters-in-law. In one corner is the Born Again Evangelical whackaloon and in the other is the Mormon convert whackaloon. They both found religion in adulthood and boy howdy are they high on their own supply. The biggest outright kerfuffle occurred on the 1st anniversary of their mom's death when the Mo Sister had her posthumously baptized as a Mo. One of the other sisters told the BornAgain sister and she flipped the fuck out at the next family gathering and it was glorious. Twenty Years later they are still fighting about it