Utah lawmakers from both parties, Mormon Church leaders and local gay equality advocates are expected to announce proposed legislation Wednesday meant to protect from discrimination lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, as well as opponents of gay equality who cite religion as a basis for their beliefs.
LGBT and Mormon leaders say the collaboration of a traditional faith group and gay rights groups on the divisive culture war issue is historic.
The measure, scheduled to be announced at a noon Salt Lake City news conference, generally bans discrimination in housing and employment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. It also protects the employment rights of those who oppose gay equality as well as the right of religious organizations to choose who lives in their non-commercial housing. It specifically exempts as an employer the Boy Scouts of America, whose largest single sponsor is the Mormon Church.
The measure will be introduced in both chambers and is expected to be voted on before the state session ends next week.
“It’s monumental in the significantly LDS population of Utah that we could move this forward, and if we can do it in a very, very red state like Utah, probably the most red state, a very conservative place, we can find a way to exist together and try to find a way to respect one another’s rights – it can be done anywhere in the United States,” said state Senate Majority Whip Stuart Adams (R), who was charged with crafting the measure. “It’s not perfect but it’s symbolic of an effort to move forward and protect the freedoms of everyone, mindful that there can be unintended consequences and sometimes we swing the pendulum so hard to protect some we forget the rights of others, and I don’t think anyone wants that to happen.”
The measure was supposed to be released Tuesday but was held up over some details and it wasn’t clear early Wednesday if major national LGBT and religious freedom advocates would support it. Officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said that they would attend the news conference to show support for the measure and that they would not comment until then.
LGBT and Mormon leaders in Utah have been working for years behind the scenes on their bumpy relationship, culminating in late January with the church’s announcement that it would support non-discrimination legislation — one of the largest U.S. faith groups to do so. They made clear at the time that they would do so only if the religious right to reject gay equality was protected. Some gay rights groups called demands for exemptions a major loophole while others said the announcement reflected powerful, growing common ground between religious liberties and gay equality.
The Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention – the country’s largest faith denominations — have opposed the federal Employee Non-Discrimination Act, and Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore in January called the Mormon Church “well-intentioned but naïve.”
“Our country has been divided unnecessarily between LGBT rights and religious liberties, so people have come together to work through these issues. I hope what we do, what we release, will be a model for the nation,” Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah, said of the measure being announced Wednesday.
The bill requires concessions from both sides.
It protects people only in housing and employment, but not in the broader category of “public accommodations” – such as retail spaces, hotels and taxis. “We ran out of time,” said Williams, who said advocates’ ultimate goal is “full legal equality in all areas governed by civil law.”
He said research shows that at least 37,000 LGBT people are in the workforce in Utah, “and to have a bill that protects them is huge.” He said legislation to ban discrimination has been introduced in Utah for seven years and failed — without church support.
Traditional groups are likely to view the measure as too narrow.
In its statement in late January saying it supported anti-discrimination measures, the Mormon Church cited as examples of religious persecution things such as public schools refusing to recognize traditional faith student groups or corporate leaders pushed out of their jobs for voicing beliefs against gay equality.
Other Utah lawmakers had proposed broader religious liberties protections for the bill, the Salt Lake City Tribune reported.
In January, LGBT advocates described years of relationship-building and dinners at private homes between the two sides after bitter feelings about the church’s significant support of Proposition 8 in 2008, a measure to ban same-sex marriage in California.
Twenty-one states and Washington, D.C., have anti-discrimination protections in housing and employment on the basis of sexual orientation, and 18 states and D.C. have such protections on the basis of gender identity. If the measure becomes law, Utah would be in those groups.