In both 2015, as well as 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of Tennessee House of Representatives member Sheila Butt, who we gave special attention to for responding to the existence of the Council of American-Islamic Relations on Facebook by suggesting that she should start a Council of Christian Relations and a NAAWP (which would presumably be the National Association for the Advancement of White People). What Butt might have wanted to check before she shot her mouth off that there already WAS a NAAWP back in 1953, founded by a White Supremacist in response to the NAACP. It fell apart within two years, but made a comeback in 1979, being run by none other than former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. Sheila Butt refused to apologize, claimed she was being unfairly targeted by a liberal conspiracy for her remarks, and was offended that anyone would even suggest she was racist because of them.
Butt, who is a pastor’s wife, also wrote a book in 2008 that gave advice like to not date outside one’s race to avoid having biracial children, along with other tips like “find a young man who believes he is a breadwinner so his wife could be a stay home mom someday”, that “we did not come from ‘goo’ as the theory of evolution suggests”, and that “being gay is a choice” that is typically made because of “Satan, a bad sexual experience with members of the opposite sex, or a mom who didn’t encourage her son’s masculinity”. As a legislator, Butt has racked up the kind of voting record you might expect from a Tennessee Republican, including trying to nullify federal firearms laws, declare abortion as against the law because there’s nothing in the Constitution regarding it, and to try and name the Bible as the state book. And yes, she’s quite the theocrat, having produced legislation that would ban public schools from mentioning other religions during world history lessons, because she felt Islam was being given too much attention in it., being concerned that acknowledging it exists and played a role in world history could amount to “indoctrination”. Go figure, she also started haranguing Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam to block the admission of Syrian Refugees that might be resettled into the state in November of 2015.
She’s also currently on board with Tennessee Republicans’ attempts to prevent the removal of Confederate monuments (but she still insists she’s not racist). But perhaps her lowest moment was when she argued against putting rape and incest exceptions into an abortion bill because they are “not verifiable”, which would be news to a lot of crime labs with rape kits and genetic testing, but it’s still sad to see a woman who believes anyone who seeks an abortion due to rape should be immediately be under suspicion of deception.
Oh, and we weren’t the only ones who noticed the phenomenon that is Sheila Butt, as Samantha Bee gave her a special spotlight during Season One of her TBS show, Full Frontal, back in April of 2016, where she mocked her not only for her new stance on transgender citizens using public bathrooms (Hint: Butt’s ideas are on the intolerant side of the issue) for all of what we covered, and referred to Butt’s book for advice for girls, “Instead, do all the stuff Sheila Butt suggests, or as she may call it, ‘Butt Stuff.’ This Tennessee state representative wants you to do lots and lots of Butt stuff. Do Butt stuff until it hurts!”
Our update on Sheila Butt is simply that since Samantha Bee properly humiliated her, she has kept her head down for the past year, and that meant that Tennessee voters didn’t notice (or care) and re-elected her with 72% of the vote. Apparently about ¾ of Colombia, Tennessee is really comfortable with bigotry, because you kind of have to be to keep a woman like Sheila Butt around in the state legislature.