Chris Buttars And Bill Maher-- One Believes In Education And One Holy Underpants

But normal people live in Utah too

I don't know if he's related to the Buttars family of South Park but Utah state Senator Chris Buttars has made quite the name for himself over the years as one of his benighted state's most racist, most homophobic and most delusional legislators. He first came to prominence outside of his own lunatic asylum of a state by proposing a bill to teach "Divine Design" in the Utah public schools. No, not a cross between John Waters and HBTV; this was his idea of countering Darwin's Theory of Evolution. It isn't the only time he's tried interfering in the school system. When he introduced a bill to ban gay bars and gay dance clubs, he threw in a ban on gay-straight alliances in public schools to boot. Even the Mormon Church was embarrassed enough by him to issue an official statement reminding their followers that "Senator Buttars does not speak for the church."

Well, yesterday he was on his anti-education jihad again. This time he's trying to eliminate 12th grade.

The notion quickly gained some traction among supporters who agreed with the Republican's assessment that many seniors frittered away their final year of high school, but faced vehement opposition from other quarters...

Education, of course, has always been the biggest enemy of superstitions, religionist hucksters and conservatives like Buttars and the Utah Republican Party. I don't know if Bill Maher has ever heard of Buttars but he sure seemed to be talking about him the other night on his HBO special: