The Mormon Church took a prominent role in the passage of Proposition 8 in California. Gay advocates in Utah see a positive fallout from the church’s engagement with the issue of same-sex marriage. The New York Times reports,
Equality Utah, said statements made by Mormon leaders in defense of their actions in California — that the church was not antigay and had no problem with legal protections for gay men and lesbians already on the books in California — were going to be taken as an endorsement to expand legal rights that gay and lesbian couples have never remotely had in Utah, where the church is based.
“We are taking the L.D.S. Church at its word,” said Stephanie Pappas, Equality Utah’s chairwoman.
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[F]ive bills would be drafted in time for the opening of the Legislature in January, all narrowly tailored to what church leaders had said they could live with in California.
No attempt will be made … to overturn Utah’s constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, passed in 2004. The group will propose, however, striking out language in the amendment that prohibits legal protections for domestic unions.
The proposed laws would also expand protections for same-sex couples in health care and hospitalization decisions, housing and employment and in inheritance issues in probate court.