Two Republicans will sponsor gay rights
bills next year in the Utah Legislature, the Deseret News
reported.
Leaders of the gay Republican group Log
Cabin Republicans say they have secured two GOP lawmakers to sponsor
a pair of gay rights bills next year.
The announcement comes on the heels of
Utah's first gay rights law. Last week, Salt
Lake City leaders unanimously voted in favor of outlawing
discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the
areas of employment and housing.
A last-minute endorsement by the Mormon
Church surprised and delighted gay activists.
Last year, after
the church supported Proposition 8, the voter-approved initiative
that banned gay marriage in California, the church released a
statement saying it supports gay rights that do not “infringe on
the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights
of churches.”
Gay rights
advocates in Utah took the church to mean it would not oppose a
collection of proposed gay rights bills in the Legislature. But the
church's silence on the bills, including one that would have enacted
similar protections, doomed them.
Gay activists
believe that the church's endorsement of the Salt Lake City ordinance
is a game changer.
“This next
legislative session is going to be much conductive to conservation
and finding solutions,” Melvin Nimer, president of Utah Log Cabin
Republicans, told the paper.
The bills will
focus on adoption rights and a gay protections law modeled after the
just-passed Salt Lake City ordinance, the group said, adding that it
would announce which Republicans would carry the legislation later
this week.