A Very Utah Christmas

Elenor Heyborne and Marina Gomberg apply for a marriage license on Dec. 20.
Photo by Jim Urquhart

‘Tis the week before Christmas, and all through the state,

Wedding bells are ringing for those who can’t wait.

For a window was opened, and soon it might close

If cold-hearted grinches get what they propose:

A stay on the order that lifted the ban;

And marriages only for a woman and man.

But if ever there was a time and a place

For a state to perform an abrupt about face,

It’s here in a state that was founded by men

Who lived not with just one, but many women;

And here in a place, where our leaders do strive

To keep government rules out of all of our lives;

And here in a world where so many do trust,

That freedom means fairness for ev’ry one of us;

And here in a place with a great history

Of changing our laws when it’s clear it needs be.

For instance, that time in Nineteen-Thirty-Three,

When we were the deciding state to decree,

Prohibition should end in the nation at large,

Even though most the people who were then in charge,

Partook of no liquor, not one single drop.

Repeal did not change that, did not make it stop.

And then there was the year Eighteen-Ninety-Six

We elected a woman into the mix

Of Utah’s state senate; the first woman to be

Serving such a role in the land of the free.

Yes, Utah has had its fair share of regrets,

Banning blacks from the priesthood was bad as it gets.

It wasn’t until Nineteen-Seventy-Eight,

That the Mormons would fix that awful mistake. 

And it wasn’t until just this very year,

The church’s leaders made it perfectly clear,

There was no good reason for the racial ban.

It wasn’t God’s will but the fault of a man,

Who let a few passages from the Good Book

Influence him to blatantly overlook

The teachings of someone who many now say

Was our Lord and Savior, born on Christmas day.

Is it hard to think that today we might have

A law on our books every bit as bad,

Begun with the best of intentions and yet

Will someday be something we’d like to forget?

With this all in mind is it too much to ask,

For one brave and audacious holiday task?

Dear Governor Herbert, please look in your heart,

And think about what our state might just impart,

Upon our great nation if you’d just command

That Utah won’t be where hate makes its last stand.

You don’t have to change any deep-held beliefs

About what a good marriage really should be.

Just let us all have the same rights you enjoy.

To marry our partners, to share all our joy,

Our betters and worses, our deaths to us part.

And simply allow this next New Year to start

With love and compassion, instead of a fight.

A Merry Christmas for all, when we all Choose the Right.

It's time to move the Olympics — to Salt Lake City

There’s a movement afoot to convince the International Olympic Committee to move the 2014 Winter Games out of Russia.

Rightfully so. In the wake of the passing of that nation’s horrendous “homosexual propaganda” laws — and assurances from the host nation’s sports minister that the laws will be enforced on athletes and visitors alike during the games — the Sochi experiment can rightly be considered an abject failure.

So far, The New York Times has observed, “those who organize, broadcast and underwrite the Games have offered little beyond tardy and lukewarm criticism.”

I wonder how that might change, though, when the “protests, boycotts, and terrible publicity,” promised by actor, human rights advocate and social media magnate George Takei, are underway.

“Trust me,” Takei wrote today, “if you are a corporate brand, you do not want to be associated with the Sochi Olympics.”

Moscow, of course, has never been one to acquiesce to social, cultural, political or economic power.  

And so, as tens of thousands of people have already demanded on a Change.org petition, it’s time to move the games.

To where? The quick response is Vancouver, which hosted the last Winter Olympics. I’m not sure how the residents of Terminal City are going to feel about that, though, given that the last round of the games left their town with a $1 billion hangover.

Those games were also the unfortunate victim of an unseasonably warm winter, which resulted in cancelations and delays of several events and none-too-favorable conditions for many others.

All of which and more is why I say: Come to Salt Lake City.

Like Vancouver, most of the facilities and infrastructure that helped make the 2002 games such an incredible success are still here. Ski ramps? Check. Bobsled course? Check. Olympic oval? Check. So too are most of the 20-something-thousand volunteers who made those games a success. We could probably even get former Salt Lake Organizing Committee president Mitt Romney to come lend a hand — word is that he’s been looking for something to do lately.

Our highways are better than they were in 2002. Same thing for our light rail and commuter rail systems. Salt Lake City’s new public safety building is virtually built to  be the epicenter of a massive security operation. And even in a bad snow year, the eight world-famous ski resorts within an hour’s drive of downtown Salt Lake City are considerably better off than many resorts are in a good year.

Greatest Snow on Earth? You’re damn right. 

And, not for nothing, our population is gayer than ever — so says The Advocate, which last year named Salt Lake “the gayest city in America” (this year, we dropped to a humble sixth.)

Lastly — but perhaps most importantly — we could actually pull it off. No doubt in my mind. None whatsoever. They say that the fact our city is completely surrounded by mountains makes it hard to see past our own horizons. I’ll accept that. But it also makes it hard to believe in limits.

If the Games aren’t held in Russia — and they shouldn’t be — bring them here.

Matthew D. LaPlante is a journalist and assistant professor of journalism at Utah State University. 

Boom goes our freedom — at a cost to our vets

Two months sure felt like an awfully long time.

But compared to the year-and-even-longer combat tours being served by Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines back then, my first reporting trip to Iraq was nothing.

Still, those two months have stayed with me, in big and small ways, ever since. And every July, I get a little extra reminder in the form of fireworks and firecrackers.

For the first few years, the sudden staccato pops and unexpected booms would send my heart racing. I’d get agitated. I’d lose focus on what I was doing. I’d feel scared.

Worse still were the flying pyrotechnic mortars, which — at least to my untrained ears — sounded eerily like the real thing.

I felt guilty and embarrassed about this for a long time. Turns out, though, that I wasn’t alone.

Shortly after my last trip to Iraq in 2010, I met a Vietnam veteran named Tony, who told me that he had spent every July 4 since the early 1970s holed up in a one-man backpacking tent in the mountains. When he moved to Utah in the mid-1980s, he began making two summer trips to the high Uintas, since people in this very patriotic place also enjoy celebrating the state’s Pioneer Day, on July 24, with fireworks. Some time around the late-1990s, he said, folks here seemed to decide that the whole month of July was a good enough occasion to set’em off.

Much too old, now, to spend an entire month in a little tent, Tony cobbled together enough money to buy an old Airstream trailer and takes it out as far as he can into the wilderness for the full month.

“Do you enjoy those trips?” I asked him.

“Not particularly,” he said. “But it’s better than hiding under my bed.”

And Tony’s not alone, either.

Christopher Packley, a former Marine from Illinois, told the Chicago Tribune in 2011 that the even the smell of fireworks can trigger powerful memories of his time in Iraq during the siege of Fallujah, more than seven years earlier.

Cyrus Hackworth, a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam, told The Army Times in 2012 that he’s still troubled by the sound of fireworks, even when he hears them in the distance.

Iraq War veteran Matt Veil told The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette in 2012 that once, during a dinner out with his girlfriend, he instinctively hit the ground at the sound of the first blasts of a fireworks show at a minor league baseball stadium a half-mile away.

“It echoed down the buildings, and it just made an eerie sound,” Veil said. “The sound reminded me so much of mortar fire or heavy artillery fire.”

It’s ironic, I’ve long thought, that these noisy celebrations come in recognition of a nation founded on the blood of America’s very first war veterans. And it’s a little sad to me that so few people have taken note; we shouldn’t have to be told, or ordered, to do something decent for the men and women who have worn this nation’s military uniforms.

Now, I’m not so naïve as to think that we’ll ever ban these things, nor so dumb as to think we should. For some people — even some veterans — the pop-pop-ratatat-pop-pop-boom of pyrotechnics is the sound of freedom.

But I wonder if we can all agree, like gentlemen and gentlewomen, that there’s a time and place for it all. Not a law, just a kindness — a measure of respect for those whose brains have been wired just a bit differently as a result of their service in one of our country’s wars. July 4 from dusk ‘til midnight? That seems fair, right?

To be clear, I’m not asking for me. The whistling mortars sometimes still make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, but only very occasionally when I’m not expecting them. These days, I’m largely unfazed and, in fact, I’ve really grown to like fireworks again. The soccer team I cheer for has a big fireworks show coming up after the game in a few days, and I’ll be there, sitting on the pitch, taking it all in with my wife and daughter.

But there are many veterans among us for whom these sounds might never be anything but unsettling. For Tony and Christopher, for Cyrus and Matt, and for thousands upon thousands of others — compared to the sacrifices they’ve all made, this one seems particularly paltry.

Matthew D. LaPlante is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and an assistant professor of journalism at Utah State University. He covered military and national security issues for The Salt Lake Tribune from 2005 to 2011.

Seeking prayer: An open letter to Bishop Frederick Campbell regarding the firing of teacher Carla Hale

Most Reverend Frederick F. Campbell
Bishop of Columbus
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus
197 E. Gay Street
Columbus, OH 43215
(614) 228-2457
commailbox@colsdioc.org

Dear Bishop Campbell,

Please pray for me to understand the wisdom and compassion of your decision to fire Carla Hale, who was outed as a lesbian by a parent at Bishop Watterson High School after her partner's name appeared in her mother's obituary. You see, sir, I'm just having a terribly difficult time understanding how terminating a woman as she mourns the loss of her mother is an action befitting a disciple of Christ.

I suppose where I'm really stuck is Romans 12:19.

And 1 Peter 3:8.

And then there's Ephesians 4:32.

Oh, and also Mark 12:31. (And Matthew 22:39, which is really the same story, but I've always liked that version better.)

And, of course, there's John 8:7. (And forgive me, father, for suggesting by offering this verse that you are with sin — I mean, I know you are, because we all are, but I recognize how unseemly it is for me to make mention of it.)

There's also Matthew 5:44 — which I suppose only applies if you consider Ms. Hale to be your enemy. Which I suppose she must have been for you to fire her while she was grieving her mom's death, but then again that would also mean you have been commanded by our Lord and Savior to love her. So, then, I suppose I should conclude that she must not have been your enemy, in which case I am left to wonder why you would have fired her while she was grieving the loss of her mother.

There's also Matthew 21:31. I'm not, of course, suggesting that Ms. Hale is a prostitute or a tax collector, only that she might — as Christ suggested — enter the kingdom of heaven before other people who proclaim to follow God, but do not heed his very clear instructions on how we should treat our brothers and sisters in this life.

Yours in Christ,
matthew

Matthew D. LaPlante
Salt Lake City, Utah

The gun control debate is endless — but we can do something right now in response to Sandy Hook

Salt Lake Tribune photo by Danny Chan  La

It was well past midnight when the coroner began to take away the bodies.

The Trolley Square shopping center massacre, on Feb. 12, 2007, occurred just a few blocks north of my home in Salt Lake City. I was quickly dispatched to the scene by my then-employer, The Salt Lake Tribune, and I remained there until long after the five murder victims had been taken to the morgue.

Then, as now, the tragedy quickly prompted a conversation about the role of guns in our society.

Except then, in the aftermath of the heroics of an off-duty police officer who engaged the gunman until fellow officers could arrive to assist, the conversation was about how much worse it could have been if there hadn’t been a concealed weapon carrier dining at the mall on that terrible night.

Gun control advocates — of which I am one — generally forget about Trolley Square when debating the need to limit access to personal firearms. They ignore the fact that, in the seconds before Officer Ken Hammond’s intervention, the gunman killed five people, while in the terrifying minutes that followed no other innocent bystanders were harmed.

Gun ownership advocates — of which I am one — often suggest that any concealed weapons carrier could have and would have done what Hammond did. That’s a laughable contention in a state where concealed carry permits are available to just about anyone for a few bucks after a four-hour class that doesn’t require would-be permit holders to demonstrate they can actually handle a gun.

Let’s get real. This debate’s not taking us anywhere anyway. There are enough non-military firearms in this nation to arm every man, woman and child. And even if legislation could address the ridiculously vast stockpiles of private guns and ammunition in this nation, it would not pass Constitutional muster in a Supreme Court that, in recent years, has broadly struck down state and local gun control measures.

The lesson of Trolley Square, a lesson that we can and should apply in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, is not that we need more or less gun control, or more or fewer concealed firearms. Rather, the lesson is, and should be, that it’s good to have well-trained people in the right place at the right time.

And at least when it comes to public schools, that is something we can do right away, without legislation, without political belligerence, without waiting for the courts to opine and without spending a single penny more than we already do on school safety.

At this moment, three blocks from Trolley Square, a fortress is rising. The $125 million Salt Lake City Public Safety Building is being built, in part, because the city’s police department has outgrown its older downtown digs.

You might think police work is an outside-in endeavor — in other words, most of the work is done outside the office. In reality, even patrol officers spend a significant amount of their time in the office, writing reports and tending to other administrative duties. So a lot of space in our city’s new public safety building will look like space in any other office building — long rows and columns of cubicles, at which will hunch dozens of cops at a time as they tend to the pencil-pushing parts of policing.

That’s work that can be done anywhere. Including a small office in any — and every — public school in the country.

That’s good policy anyway. Since the mid-1990s, the U.S. Department of Justice has promoted Community Oriented Policing, a set of guidelines that, among other things, seek to create community partnerships and disperse officers geographically across a jurisdiction (much as elementary, middle and high schools are distributed across a community.)

Already, some legislators are talking about placing more school resource officers — police men and women assigned full-time to a specific school to help maintain order and safety — in public schools. That’s a nice idea — and an expensive one. And according to a report by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, a lot of resource officer time is taken up doing work that could (and sometimes should) be done by teachers and administrators.

By contrast, non-resource officers assigned to complete their paperwork on a set schedule in a school-based office would cost their communities nothing. They would provide presence, and — if necessary — a rapid response to problems of significance at and around the school. On most days, they would simply use a small desk or office to do what they’d be doing anyway. And on very bad days, they would be a well-trained person in the right place at the right time.

There is no single solution to this terrible problem. But the gun control debate is endless and winless. Satellite police offices can be in our schools tomorrow. And should be.

Matthew D. LaPlante is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Communication at Utah State University, and is the father of a kindergarten student in the Salt Lake City School District.