Bill Creating Anti-LGBT Discrimination Dead in Utah

Not Enough Votes In Senate Before Deadline

A measure to create a Utah statewide law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or sexual identity died on  March 11, 2013.  Before the Monday deadline to vote on it, Senator Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, co-sponsor of the bill, said he was unable to round up enough votes in the Utah Senate to support it.  Urquhart has represented since 2009 the 29th District in Washington County and prior to that, he served in the House of Representatives in the Utah State Senate from 2001 to 2009.

History of the Legislation

“It is a breakthrough piece of legislation,” said Senator Jim Dabakis (D-Salt Lake City), a co-sponsor of the legislation.  Dabakis was elected Chair of the Utah Democratic Party in July 2011 as the first openly gay person to lead a state party in Utah.  He was appointed to the Utah Senate by Democratic Delegates in December 2012 following the election of Senator Ben McAdams to the mayoralty of Salt Lake County. He is one of the co-founders of Equality Utah and the Utah Pride Center.

For five consecutive years, the legislation has been introduced in the Legislature.  However, on March 7th, the measure had passed out of a legislative committee with approval. “We have had a huge leap this year toward evolving,” remarked Dabakis.

The proposal would not have applied to religious organizations.  They are already exempt from the state’s anti-discrimination laws.  The legislation also extended that exemption to any organization advocating a viewpoint that would be affected by employing someone falling into a protected category.

For the past five years, statewide efforts, generally led by Democrats, have failed in the state’s Republican-controlled Senate.  The majority of the Utah legislators and residents belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which did not support nor oppose the bill.

Urquhart said opposition from Republicans in the Senate mirrored arguments from opponents that protecting people because of their sexual orientation violates the freedom of religious people who don’t support the “lifestyle.”

Future of the Bill

Dabakis and Urquhart hope to work over the next year to get the church to support the legislation as they did in 2009 when Salt Lake became the first municipality in Utah to pass an ordinance making it illegal to fire or evict someone for being gay or transgender and fifteen other counties and cities followed suit.

Urquhart expects the opinions of his colleagues to shift as it has over the past few years and they will advocate for the legislation.  He plans to reintroduce the legislation next year, but if it doesn’t pass, he’ll keep bringing it back until it does.