Yes, we need to leave all South Park references to one side. But the ferociously homophobic Utah state senator is also the former executive director of the Utah Boys Ranch, now called the West Ridge Academy. It’s a "tough-love" facility with some highly controversial practices and many traumatized former inmates. Testimonies of alleged serious abuse there can be read here. This first-hand account is particularly searing. Yes, they made boys wear dresses. Buttars, in some ways, is a Colbertian parody of the Christianist right. When criticized for saying that Brown vs Board of Education was decided wrong, he replied:
"I don’t think there’s a racial [sic] bone in my body…I don’t see black and white. I see people. I always have."
The Dish 