Utah State Rep. LaVar Christensen is
not content with banning gay marriage and he's introduced bills that
could make the contracts of gay and lesbian couples unenforceable.
The bills, filed on Wednesday, would
emphasize heterosexual marriage and prohibit the state from
recognizing gay couples as a family.
Christensen wrote Utah's 2004
voter-approved amendment that defines marriage as a heterosexual
union.
One of the measures states that married
heterosexual families are the “fundamental unit of society.”
“We still hold up that this is what
we know and all the evidence and all the history shows that the best
environment for raising and nurturing children is in that traditional
and natural family unit,” Christensen told Salt Lake City-based
Fox13now.com.
The bill states: “Marriage and family
predate all governments and are supported by and consistent with the
Laws of Nature and Nature's God, the Creator and Supreme Judge of the
World, affirmed in the nation's founding Declaration of
Independence.”
Brandie Balken, executive director of
gay rights group Equality Utah, told the Salt Lake Tribune
that she worried that the law is intended to outlaw recognition of
gay families.
“It could be used to create a filter
for public agencies and a way to target laws, services and funding
that currently help single Utahns or Utahns with families that differ
from Representative Christensen's,” she said.
Balken noted that the second bill filed
by Christensen aims to make “unlawful” transactions “void and
unenforceable.”
The two bills together could cancel out
contracts entered into by gay and lesbian couples, such as wills and
medical directives.