Gay People are Not "Dirty Shirts"

[Your Utah Legislature] Last night, in his State of the State address, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. offered the typical laundry list an executive hands off to the legislative branch. Fund some new roads (though this was a surprise, given all highway projects had been put on hold last fall when the economy tanked). Support health care reform. Go for green energy projects.

And be kind to others. Help your neighbors in need. Help neighbors you don't even know. Be decent.

Funny. Just a few hours earlier, the Senate Judiciary Committee slammed to the ground the first in a rational package of gay-rights bills to the ground--right along party lines, of course. Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake, sponsored the measure as part of what gay-rights activists are calling the "Common Ground Initiative." It would have allowed financial dependents to sue if a breadwinner suffers a wrongful death. The law would have covered same-sex, long-term partners as well as anyone else in a family who relies on someone for financial support--grandparents or siblings, for example.

Republicans on the committee, of which Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, is chairman, were in fine form. They pulled out the "slippery slope" argument--as in, if we pass this bill, gay people will soon be nabbing our children off the street. (Don't laugh. I don't even want to know how many legislators actually believe it.) Another senator fretted that McCoy's bill is a "dirty shirt" in a laundry basket of marriage rights that would lead to legalization of same-sex marriage. Even though the state of Utah amended its constitution in 2004 to ban same sex-marriage.

McCoy and others who support Common Ground (and recent polls show most Utahns do), promise they'll work the other bills in the package and not give up. It's going to take the patience of those who fought for civil rights for blacks and for suffragists who battled for equal rights for women. It's going to take forever.

That said, will our elected leaders in this state ever, ever rise to a higher level of debate on this matter? Hate-filled speech, ugly analogies, unkind and fear-based arguments overshadow every discussion about gay rights at this Legislature. Their own Republican governor has implored them to practice basic human kindness to others. Still, comparing the gay and lesbian civil rights fight to a "dirty shirt?" Just sad. (Holly Mullen)

Jon and Huck

[More Gay Marriage] I was way late to this discussion with Jon Stewart and Mike Huckabee on the issue of same-sex marriage. I just saw the Dec. 8 episode of The Daily Show last night, while catching up on all my Comedy Central recordings. Please to excuse my tardiness in sharing this with you.

This video clip shows why Stewart is one of the best interviewers working right now. Of course the guy gets the laughs. But when he wants an answer from a shifty politician like Huckabee, he works as hard as anyone in the business to get it. And if he doesn't get the answer, at least he bores into a subject hard enough to make the guy squirm a bit.

It's long, but worth watching. (Holly Mullen)

Mormons and Marriage Polemics

[Mormon Sophistry] We called our friends David and Jimmy last night in San Francisco. They were married on Oct. 25 on a lovely day in that city, after 27 years together in a committed relationship. David is nearly 70. His reaction to Prop 8 passing in California was about what I expected. "We'll keep fighting," he said. "It's not going to go away, people aren't going to give up. We know that."

They don't know what's going to happen to the legal status of their marriage. Like the rest of us married stiffs, they go to bed together each night and wake up each morning, do their lives and are grateful to have someone on their side, helping them through. The outcome of the vote won't change that. Still, to live in a society that would recognize their marriage, that would be something all right.

The LDS Church issued this official statement regarding its well-publicized and the multi-million-dollar-funded fight it encouraged for Prop 8. It's posted on the church's "newsroom" link. According to LDS leaders, they have always supported joint property rights, the right of gay partners to visit each other in the hospital and many of the benefits that heterosexual married partners enjoy. It's just that marriage thing that they can't stomach.

The subtext of the official message is fascinating. The message was posted following Barack Obama's rout in his presidential victory. Obama drew millions of supporters who have never felt remotely a part of American politics or its power structure--blacks, Latinos (check out final election result maps and the border regions of every state from Texas westward to California. All of them, blue, blue, blue), gays, young voters. These people are the future of U.S. power and culture and the LDS hierarchy knows it. They had to issue a statement that seems inclusive and welcoming. The numbers in the U.S. are against them. The future is about same-sex marriage, an expansion of civil rights and a world with fewer borders, boundaries and restrictions on "people who aren't like us."

My friends David and Jimmy may not live long enough to see the change. But then I look around at the number of twenty- and thirty-somethings who are proudly gay and lesbian, who are politically engaged and who vote. It's just a matter of time. (Holly Mullen)

Down on Domestic Partners

[Law] An interesting decision came down from the Michigan Supreme Court today regarding insurance benefits for domestic partners of public employees. Like Utah, Michigan has a statute prohibiting same-sex marriage. Like Utah, certain cities, counties and public universities are recognizing (or trying to recognize) domestic partnerships in their employee benefit packages.

Hunker down Utah--now that Michigan has set a precedent, I can see our morality police jumping on the litigation bandwagon any minute now. LaVar Christensen, Gayle Ruzicka, Chris Buttars, are you all over it?

(Holly Mullen)