My Visit to Utah

I just got back from a trip to Provo, Utah. Unfortunately, I didn't get to look around much, just flew in, did my thing, and flew out.

I was invited to give a talk at Brigham Young University. In case you don't know, BYU is run by the Mormon Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. You can't say exactly a hundred per cent, but generally, all the students (there are about 35,000 of them) and all the faculty are Mormons. It was one of the few times that I have given a talk and it started with a prayer. It's happened before, but usually only if I spoke at a church; this was in an auditorium in the Computer Science department. Before they introduced me they started with a prayer, asking Jesus to help them understand what I was going to say.

Yes, I understand that some readers will find a certain irony in that. Compounding the irony, these will be just those readers who don't know what the word "irony" means, who think it's a synonym for "sarcasm." Which is also ironic...

I spent twelve hours, solid, eight-thirty aye-em to eight-thirty pee-em, meeting with faculty and students, hearing about their projects, answering their questions, listening to their ideas. Lunch with the faculty, dinner at Sundance with a professor and his top graduate student, great guys, great food, great scenery.

They were a most impressive bunch. They showed me a couple of projects that'd knock your socks off. I mean, if your socks come off when you learn about a comprehensive Bayesian-network method for sampling from estimated probability distributions of classes of functions to predict the trajectory of a search algorithm. And of course the landscape out there was gorgeous. Huge, snow-covered mountains rise up, right from the edges of the city. A chilly-looking little river ran behind my hotel. The shuttle driver said, about three times, that the biggest problem they have there is deciding whether to play golf or ski. And in fact the airport was full of people with skis, and the weather was outrageous, twenties at night, forties in the afternoons with clear, bright, clean-air sunshine.

It was interesting to look at the local newspaper, to see what it is that people in Utah, arguably the most conservative state in the USA, are concerned about. The Salt Lake City Tribune had a whole section on what the legislature is up to.

For instance, I thought it was interesting that the Utah legislature is moving to make schools give a message about evolution to biology students -- but it's close:

A proposal targeting evolution survived its toughest challenge Wednesday when it eked out of a House committee by one vote.

SB96, which requires teachers to say the state doesn't endorse any theory involving the "origins of species," needs only the support of the full House to pass the Legislature after gaining approval by the House Education Committee 7-6.

The bill is the brainchild of Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, who is disgusted that some educators teach that humans have a common ancestor with chimpanzees... Evolution bill survives by a vote: Critic asks why lawmakers are telling teachers how to teach

Oh, and I did like the way this female reporter played the "pill bill" in this story:

Insurance and business leaders gave the all-male Senate Health and Human Services Committee the reasons they were looking for to kill the so-called “pill bill” for the eighth year in a row Wednesday - complaints about unfunded mandates, health care costs and meddling in the marketplace. Women's 'pill bill' dies again: Contraception: Planned Parenthood director tells lawmakers to provide 'health care that eliminates the need for abortion'

The bill would have required insurance companies to cover birth control. But you gotta love that "all-male committee" wording, I think the reporter, Rebecca Wlash, managed to get her point across, don't you?

And then of course, here's Buttars again -- we've actually talked about him before on this blog, he's a piece of work.

WEST JORDAN REPUBLICAN Sen. Chris Buttars' absence from Capitol Hill Wednesday disrupted the legislative process. His bill banning gay clubs from Utah high schools was pulled from a Senate committee in the morning. Here [in a photo], a group of Hunter High School students who were given permission slips to miss school so they could speak about the bill, do the next best thing and corner Rep. Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley City, in the hall. Bill banning gay clubs from Utah high schools pulled from a Senate committee

So maybe it was a good thing the kids went to the legislature, got to lobby a little bit for the "gay clubs." Not only did they learn a little bit about how it all works, but it appears that they actually may have had an effect.

And it crosses my mind, what kind of uproar would we be hearing from CRC, and from Anon here in the comments, if MCPS gave students a pass to get out of school, so they could lobby for "gay clubs?" It doesn't appear to me that the Mormons in Utah batted an eye.

Also, it kind of sounds like it's just this one guy who wants this bill. Unlike the CRC, who is outraged that Gay-Straight Alliances can function in Montgomery County schools, the people of Utah -- except for this one nutty legislator -- seem to pretty much figure it's not really the state's business to meddle in every little thing that people do, including gay people. Isn't that weird?

I appreciated this letter to the editor on the day I was there:

Sen. Chris Buttars has finally revealed his SB97, meant to abolish clubs for gay and lesbian teens.

If this bill passes, it will leave many of these teens without support when they need it most, and that will shape their lives accordingly. Such efforts of self-styled "moral" crusaders are, in fact, the main force urging gay teens into the sort of "self-destructive, secretive and promiscuous gay lifestyle" people like Sen. Buttars love to rally against.

Alternatively, these teens could be taught the value of abstinence and monogamy. They could learn to honestly accept their nature and deal with it in a way that fits their faith and morality. They could be assured they had a role and stake in our society, regardless of their orientation, and that there is a reason to hope for a better life outside of high school when it seems all hope is lost.

Sen. Buttars' hiding of such a malicious goal as removing support and sense of community from these teens should make everyone wonder if he hasn't begun using his copy of C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters as an instruction guide for drafting legislation.

Tom Butterfield
Sandy

I also liked this one:

Some respondents have complained that moral "crusader" is too favorable a description of West Jordan Republican Sen. Chris Buttars.

They should study their history. The original crusaders were religious fanatics who mixed politics and religion and thereby caused great harm to their society. Sounds accurate to me.

Jack Worlton
Salt lake City

Utah is a strange state, just plain different. More than half the people who live in that state are Mormons. These are very conservative people, straight-laced, hard-working, down-to-earth. Myself, I would expect that such a uniform population would end up more or less stifling debate. Looking around, though, it appears that just the opposite happens. The discussion there is wide open. Maybe it turns out that one thing about being conservative, straight-laced, and hard-working is that you don't take time to interfere in other people's lives.