Dabakis and Urquhart | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The op-ed "Democratic lamb on the Hill" (Opinion, March 24) by new state Sen. Jim Dabakis, D-Salt Lake City, is an example of a someone succumbing to the Stockholm syndrome (coming to love your tormentors) in record time. The syndrome helps explain why Dabakis described the nondiscrimination bone thrown to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community by his new buddy, Sen. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, as "the bravest stand by a legislator in a long, long time."

Urquhart is smart. He has a completely safe southern Utah senatorial seat for life, and the LGBT community has deep pockets to make campaign contributions to those labeled as LGBT heroes for merely exhibiting a spark of concern for social justice, for briefly doing the right thing.

So Urquhart had little to lose and much to gain by supporting the failed bill that would have banned housing and employment discrimination against gays. Then he quickly returned to his extreme GOP primitive status to help pass the concealed gun measure, wherein almost any Utahn can carry concealed weapons without any training or registering for a permit (fortunately, the governor vetoed that bill).

Don L. Miller

St. George