Equal Marriage Now

Utah

Straight couples cheer ‘gay’ bill, Salt Lake Tribune, Rosemary Winters.

Gay rights battles heat up in Utah as group buys extremist ad, Towleroad, Andy Towle. In additional to information about the ad, the Towleroad post links to related coverage and includes a news video.

Boiling over: Rhetoric in gay rights debate heating up, Salt Lake Tribune, Rosemary Winters.

Excerpts from the above headlines follow:

Straight couples cheer ‘gay’ bill,
Two pieces of new today – one from Utah, one from France – underline the reality that the modern family has many, many different faces. And same-sex couples are only one of many new variations. As a result, anti-gay legislation impacts more than just gay people. New restrictions on adoption posed in Kentucky and Tennessee would strip the right of unmarried straight people from adopting, as well as gay people. Meanwhile, the rights afforded automatically afforded to gay couples may be denied to other family situations, like two sisters living together. Finally, without the ability to enter into civil unions or domestic partnerships, ironically some straight couples find their own options too limited.

When Rep. Jennifer Seelig, D-Salt Lake City, thinks of who would benefit from her so-called gay-rights bill, it’s usually not a gay or lesbian couple. It’s an elderly widow who leans on a son for support, two sisters who live together and — perhaps most commonly — unmarried straight couples like her Rose Park neighbors Joey Behrens and Brent Grabler.

“I live in one of the most diverse districts in the state — generationally, economically, ethnically,” says Seelig, a Democrat who represents Salt Lake City’s northwest quadrant. “I want to help give [my constituents] the tools they need to be able to help themselves.”

Seelig’s HB160 would allow two, unmarried, cohabiting adults — including nonromantic pairs like mother and son — to file a “Declaration of Joint Support” with their county recorder. The document would ensure rights of inheritance, hospital visitation and medical decision making.

Gay rights battles heat up in Utah as group buys extremist ad

Over the weekend, blog Drinking Liberally posted photos of a full-page ad taken out in the Salt Lake Tribune by a group called America Forever.

The ad is replete with hateful rhetoric and fear tactics. In fact it’s so extreme that even those who agree with the message behind it think the group, which “does not have a current Utah business license as a nonprofit nor is it registered as a political-issues or political-action committee” according to the Salt Lake Tribune, has crossed the line with the ad, which “compares being gay to being ‘druggies and hookers,’ labels homosexuality as ‘anti-species behavior’ and concludes that ‘gays should be forced not to display’ their sexual orientation.”

Boiling over: Rhetoric in gay rights debate heating up

With the Utah Legislature set to consider two gay-rights bills Tuesday and one Wednesday, rhetoric from opponents is not just heating up, it’s boiling over.

On Sunday, a group called America Forever ran full-page ads in The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News calling on Utahns to “stop the homosexual movement.” The ad also condemns Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. for endorsing the Common Ground Initiative, a legislative push that would offer inheritance and medical-decision-making rights to same-sex couples and make it illegal to fire or evict someone for being gay or transgender.

Thanks to Daily Queer News.