The Utah Legislature takes one step forward...

Freedom of speech won again yesterday.

The sighs of relief from freedom-loving people have been drowned out by the wails of disbelief from the Great and Wise Elites of Utah Society. How could this bill have failed? they ask. After all, it was supported by the Media and the police. Even polls showed that Utahns supported the proposed law by huge margins!

(Personal Media Bias Observation: On the drive home yesterday, listening to the radio station KSL at about 5:35 PM, host Scott Seeger let his bias show during a sob-fest interview with one of the bill's sponsors. He said "Senator Hale, why can't we get this law passed?" [emphasis added])

Supporters of this bill continue to make the same fundamental mistake that advocates of the gun-free schools bill made: They assume that because the Upper Crust of Utah Society supports a law, well then the common man must support it as well. Then, as now, they were sadly mistaken. (Ed: Come to think of it, aren't the Hate Crimes lobby and the Gun Control lobby made up of the same people? CH: Why yes, you're right)

Back a few years ago, when the Utah gun control lobby figured out that Utah Concealed Weapon permittees could carry in public schools, they mounted a furious campaign to get the law changed. They followed the same tactics as the Hate Crimes Lobby: Namely, get the MainStreamMedia to provide constant favorable coverage, round up some sympathetic police chiefs, release polls "showing" huge majorities favoring the law.

Well, polls don't vote. People do. And the people who bothered to call their legislator on legal concealed weapons in schools and on hate crimes overwhelmingly rejected the wisdom of their Betters and opposed the laws. The repeated defeats on the school issue killed that bill. Hopefully, this latest defeat will spell the end to efforts to curtail free speech via Hate Crimes Laws.