Governor Herbert does the right thing - trusting parents to make the right decisions for their kids

THANK YOU, Governor Herbert, for doing the right thing and vetoing HB363. I have already sent an email of thanks as well.

This bill would allow for sex education but only if it taught abstinence only, no contraception information, and absolutely no mention of homosexuality.  A real head-in-the-sand piece of legislation pushed by Utah's Eagle Forum.

At last someone in Utah is willing to stand up against the pressure of the Eagle Forum and instead do what what majority want. Remember, parents already can opt their kids out of sex ed, but only 10% do; 90% still want their kids to have knowledge. Ruzicka says, "We had 64 legislators vote in favor of that bill.  And one Republican who spends a couple days looking at it caves in to the pressure."

I see it differently. We had 64 legislators scared to cross Ruzicka, and one courageous governor who LISTENED to tens of thousands of voters.

Gayle Ruzicka, and by extension the Eagle Forum, have an inordinate amount of influence in the Utah legislature simply because of their organization and access.  But they represent the extreme viewpoint and not the mainstream--even in Utah.  And legislators are afraid of Gayle.  She can make or break your election with her infamous calling tree.  Don't cross her.

Yes, I know.  If we don't like Gayle's tactics, we should fight fire with fire and start our own organization.  Someone should.  But in the meantime, I sure wish legislators would be more inclined to consider ALL of their constituents and not just the noisiest ones.

Free Speech vs Paid Speech

Since advertisers started pulling their ads from the Rush Limbaugh show in droves, some other talk celebrities are getting nervous.  They are worried about ordinary people influencing advertisers to pull those ads--fearing the trend may spread.  And an interesting and diverse group they are:

Whoopi Goldberg:  "If you don't like something that somebody is saying, you have the right to protest. But to take away their livelihood, I think is not the right way to go."

Sarah Palin:  “I think the definition of hypocrisy is for Rush Limbaugh to have been called out, forced to apologize and retract what it is he said in exercising his first amendment rights . . ."

Bill Maher:  “I don’t like it that people are made to disappear when they say something, or people try to make them disappear when they say something you don’t like. That’s America. Sometimes you’re made to feel uncomfortable, okay?”

I could go on.  You've seen others yourself.

Some have said the threatened boycott of advertisers' products if they don't pull their ads has put a chill on our right of free speech.  FREE speech?  See there's the thing.  Rush Limbaugh's speech happens to be PAID speech.  Advertisers pay handsomely to have spots aired on his program.  In turn advertisers get to reach his audience and influence them to buy products.  If the advertising is not effective, advertisers will not pay to advertise and Rush will not get paid either.  That's a free market thing not a free speech thing.  Two totally different things. 

So if advertisers fear that sponsoring Rush's program will cause them to lose business, it's nothing more than a business decision to pull those ads.  As consumers, we vote with our pocketbooks and we have a powerful voice when we choose to use it.

Rush Limbaugh is a commodity.  He puts on a deliberately outrageous and provocative program that some like and some hate.  As his popularity grew, his ability to charge more for advertising grew, too.  But when he went too far and people said they'd had enough, his ability to get advertising changed.  These are market forces we all understand in a capitalistic system.  It didn't happen over night either.  Rush has been rude and crude for a long, long time.  But the Sandra Fluke three-day attack was the last straw and it broke him.

No-one is stopping Rush from saying what he wants to say.  He has all the rights we all have to FREE speech.  But if he wants to get paid to speak, he may just have to finally learn some manners.

I'm not predicting he will go away any time soon.  In fact, I've no doubt he will find new advertisers who appeal to his very specific demographic.  But we have sent a message to him and to all talk show personalities.  You may think you are just exercising your free speech when you blather on without a thought for the consequences, but think again.  You are working for the consuming American public, and as a group we are powerful and we will make our wishes known.