Thursday, August 24, 2006
Bigot Chris Buttars (R), who is the author of the state's marriage amendment, also wishes that he could toss out the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling desegregating the schools, since, in his eyes, it's an example of those out-of-control "activist judges."
His answer at the local level: a bill that would give the Senate the power to overturn the election of perceived "activist" judges and to toss them out of office if the legislature didn't like the rulings. He went on a KVNU radio show (actually two) and made an ass out of himself. (365gay):
During the radio interview host Tom Grover noted that courts historically have been used by minority groups "to ensure [their] rights are protected."How did this frightening man get elected?
"I don't know of an example where the minority is being jeopardized by legislative action," Buttars replied. Grover then brought up the Kansas desegregation case that resulted in the busing of black students to white schools and vice versa.
"I think Brown v. Board of Education is wrong to begin with," Buttars shot back.
When Grover attempted to press him on the reply Buttars refused to be more specific, saying only "one day call me again and we'll take a half hour on that one."
As with most politicians who step in the poo and figure out that they have to scrape it off without anyone noticing, Buttars, who is also the author of a (failed) bill that would have banned high school gay-straight alliances (LGBTs are "tearing down the moral pillars of society", you know), dug a deeper hole when he appeared on another radio show to further "clarify" matters. I'll leave the description of this to Outside the Tent:
Today he was interviewed on KCPW and dug himself even deeper into a hole. Buttars not-so-brilliant attempt at damage control was to say that parts of Brown were good and other parts were bad. Of course, you might wonder what part of ending school segregation was bad. Well, according to Buttars, it was this:You can hear the radio interview at Outside the Tent as well.There's some things that Brown vs. Board of Education did that was [sic] wonderful, as I mentioned, by getting some of these minority kids in schools with more money, but in a lot of ways, once again, it broke up the educational system that was designed to maximize the number of minority kids in many schools in the South - that was my concern."That's right, kids. Brown was good because it put some black kids in white schools but bad because it broke up a system designed to keep most black kids in the same schools. Give Buttars a chance and he'll probably say that the bad thing about the Allied victory in WWII was it broke up a system designed to "maximize the number of Jews in many camps in Poland."