Ephraim Mexicans, Guns in Parks, Chaffetz's Strip-Searching & The D.C. Marriage Act

Dead White Men
Ephraim has rejected a proposal from the Snow College Hispanic Student Association to add a Mexican flag to a memorial in the city cemetery that currently includes flags of the United States, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The city’s cemetery board argues that there may be a sizable population of Mexican heritage in town now, but the monument is only for the town’s “founders.” Of course, the area was part of Mexico before those “founders” got there.

Park Packin’
President Obama has signed a new credit-card law that protects consumers from secret rate hikes … and allows loaded guns inside the country’s national parks. The gun provision that was snuck into the credit-card bill has been a dream of U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah. Bishop praised the measure for allowing citizens to exercise “their right to carry a concealed firearm while visiting national parks and wildlife refuges.” Gun owners will have to wait until February, however, when the credit-card law goes into effect.

Privacy Please
U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s bill to curtail strip-searching machines at the country’s airports will be included in a Transportation Security Administration bill. Chaffetz, R-Utah, doesn’t want to ban the machines that see through clothing, just limit their use to secondary screening for travelers who merit extra inspection. TSA tested the devices at the Salt Lake City International Airport, then announced that due to “widespread public acceptance” among the compliant citizens of the Beehive State, it wanted to make the machines the primary airport screening method nationwide.

Marriage Busters
The citizens of Washington, D.C., want to recognize gay marriages. But the U.S. Congress, which has veto power over local D.C. laws, thinks it knows better. Among congressmen trying to block gay marriage in the nation’s capital is Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. He has signed on to a one-man-one-woman “D.C. Marriage Act,” though he still hasn’t unpacked the carpetbag next to his office cot.