Eric Moutsos<\/a>, the former Salt Lake City police officer whose attempt to avoid an assignment connected with last summer\u2019s Gay Pride Parade has now reached the national and international news.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was a very articulate and persuasive interview.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Based on the little that I\u2019ve now heard and read about this story, which I haven\u2019t previously followed, it seems to me that Salt Lake Police Chief Chris Burbank handled this matter very poorly and unjustly.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one thing for a police officer to be asked to protect a parade or a demonstration. \u00a0That I entirely understand and endorse, and an officer shouldn\u2019t be permitted\u00a0to pick and choose which assignments to protect legal public events he or she will be willing to accept. \u00a0Officer Moutsos fully agrees; he has, in fact, protected homosexuality-related events in the past, and was willing to do traffic control and the like for this event, as well.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Officer Moutsos was, effectively, being asked to participate in the parade, to be part of the day\u2019s celebration and entertainment \u2014 and, if that\u2019s accurate, it seems to me flagrantly inappropriate. \u00a0As it would have been inappropriate had he been required to perform similar maneuvers during a hypothetical 2012 parade for Candidate Mitt Romney or in connection with some uniquely Mormon event.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Eric Moutsos case\u00a0appears to be\u00a0yet another example of ideologically-motivated\u00a0encroachment on freedom in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perhaps there\u2019s another side to this matter. \u00a0But, at this point, I think that\u00a0Chief Burbank ought to issue\u00a0a formal public apology, if indeed he ought not to consider resignation.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Driving home just now, I heard a fair portion of an interview with Eric Moutsos, the former Salt Lake City police officer whose attempt to avoid an assignment connected with last summer\u2019s Gay Pride Parade has now reached the national and international news. \u00a0 He was a very articulate and persuasive interview. \u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>