Put Up or Shut Up 

Today, we are pleased to have with us LeGrand J. Pratt, President and Presiding Elder of F.U.F.U. As everyone in Utah now knows, Mr. Pratt has been busy as a bee the past week or so, appearing on local media, blogging like a banshee in every nook and cranny of the blogosphere and tweeting like a hyperactive tweetie bird at every hour of the day and night.

Mr. Pratt, a burly man with a blond buzz cut, has been an indefatigable booster of all things Utah for several years now, but he really kicked it into high gear last Thursday, the day after the Supreme Court gave the boot to the Defense of Marriage Act and gave the thumbs-up to gay marriage in California. Mr. Pratt has taken a few minutes out of his busy schedule to give us an update on his one-man campaign to keep Utah, Utah.

Deep End: You look like you haven’t slept in weeks.

Pratt: Who can sleep when everything Utah stands for is being threatened? Actually, I have been able to grab 40 winks now and then. And most importantly, I keep guzzling my super-premium health drink, Eternal Energy, which is going like gangbusters, by the way, and I have several cartons in the trunk of my car if you want to sign up and sell it to your friends in the ward.

D.E.: We’d like to clear up any confusion about what F.U.F.U. stands for. Your opponents say it’s an obscene epithet double directed at anyone who disagrees with you.

Pratt: Not at all, and to anyone who thinks that’s what it means, I say, F.U. As I’ve said a million times, F.U.F.U. stands for Forever Utah For Utahns.

D.E.: How is your Forever Utah For Utahns campaign going?

Pratt: It’s going exceedingly, exceedingly good, excuse my grammar. The Supreme Court decision surprised all of us at F.U.F.U. Who would have thought that they would have opened the door, even the back door, for marriage equality for homos? Next thing you know, they will force us to make same-sex marriage legal in Utah, and we will do everything in our power to stop it.

D.E.: How do you think you are doing so far?

Pratt: We caught a big break when someone named Otterson, supposedly a spokesman for the LDS Church, issued a statement questioning our democratic and judicial system for not defending or protecting “a popular vote that reflects the views of a majority of their citizens.” He’s talking about Prop 8 in California, which was a majority rule against marriage for homos.

D.E.: What about protecting and defending the rights of the minority, in this case the desire of gay people to get married?

Pratt: They can get married somewhere else! That’s why we are working with the Utah legislature to enact laws to keep Utah forever for Utahns. If you don’t love it, leave it!

D.E.: How do you propose doing that?

Pratt: First thing is what we call Prop 1847, the year Utah was born. Our pioneer fathers came out to Utah so no Supreme Court could tell them what to do. Our Prop 1847 is pretty simple. It says you gotta have a temple recommend to live here. That pretty much settles everything: no gay marriage, no booze, no R-rated movies, no dancing in skimpy leotards, no immodest attire, no piercings, no tattoos, no facial hair (except female upper-lip fuzz), no City Weekly.

D.E.: Won’t you have to secede from the Union to get away with all that?

Pratt: Here’s what going to happen. Once we make Utah forever for Utahns, we will have established heaven on Earth. Speaking just for myself, I am getting a little tired of waiting around for the Millennium, so why not just goose things a bit and bring the Celestial Kingdom down here to Earth? And if the feds send another Johnston’s army out here to stop us from doing what we want, well, we’ll just pull an Enoch and translate the whole state of Utah right up to heaven, like the City of Enoch in scripture.

D.E.: Last question. Isn’t it kind of ironic that Utah is so obsessed with so-called traditional marriage of “one man and one woman” when it once practiced polygamy?

Pratt: Not in the least. Ever heard of anyone talk about Brigham Young and all his husbands?

D.P. Sorensen writes a satire column for City Weekly.