Salt Lake City Weekly - Secret AG Man - June 16, 2005 Secret AG Man Attorney General Mark Shurtleff wants to protect informants, even those who speak to the media. by Ted McDonough

Call him a right-wing gun nut. Call him gay-friendly. Just don't call him predictable. Mark Shurtleff, Utah continually surprising attorney general, began this month leading a charge to make federal law more favorable to the press and capped off his week attending a homosexual-rights fund-raiser at the home of Utah most prominent gay businessman.

This is the same man who argued the case for allowing guns on the University of Utah campus, and was an early leader of a national GOP lawyers group criticized for inserting conservative politics into law enforcement. If forced to choose, Shurtleff calls himself conservative, but he been called plenty of other names by some on the right and left of Utah politics. He angered the right by coming out against Amendment 3, calling the anti-gay measure bad law, and threatened to bring civil-rights charges against Northwest Airlines for refusing to fly Arab passengers.

Liberals complained when he asked Utah courts to overturn a U. rule banning guns on campus. Shurtleff was one of the ear