Red Rant: Beware Of The Eagle Forum

On Saturday, an article posted on GamePolitics revealed that Jack Thompson is set to make a speech at the annual Utah Eagle Forum Convention on Saturday, January 17th. It also revealed that Mr. Thompson was working with the Utah Eagle Forum on video game legislation for the upcoming session of the Utah Legislature. What they are trying to do is revive a piece of legislation that was ultimately discarded after many people raised objections over it. Most prominent was Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who said the law was unconstitutional. This is a bad omen. Not because Jack Thompson is involved, because the Eagle Forum is involved.

The Utah Eagle Forum is a hard line conservative lobbying group in Utah. They blatantly back legislation and politicians that are racist, sexist, homophobic, and other kinds of hateful and catch no public flack for it. The Eagle Forum is very powerful. When they put their minds toward something, it gets done. Whether it's protecting a politician, getting a piece of legislation through, or killing a piece of legislation or a politician's career. The Eagle Forum gets shit done.

I'm not saying the two issues are the same, but I'm going to draw parallels between the gay marriage issue and the legislation of video games issue. In 2004, Utah Amendment 3 was proposed. When this law was put to a public vote, it was backed by, most notably, the LDS Church, in much the same way they backed California's Proposition 8. One of the early backers of this legislation was the Eagle Forum. Despite objections from many minority groups, and Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, this amendment made it through committee, was passed by the legislature, and ultimately passed by the people of Utah with a 66% majority. The Eagle Forum got shit done.

As I said earlier, this is a bad omen. The Eagle Forum is a wide reaching and powerful group that can enact legislation that is only meant to further their agenda at the expense of those who object to them. I am afraid that their involvment will ultimately mean that video game legislation will ultimately pass into law, no matter how unconstitutional it is. I fear for us all.

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