Walsh: A step back for gay Utahns
Reading the headlines, the news isn’t good for gay Utahns.
Former Equality Utah Director Mike Thompson has moved to San Francisco, taking his organizing skills from Holladay to the Haight. He says it’s personal, not professional.
Then, Pride Week opened with what looks like a hate crime.
Christopher Vonnegut Allen was arrested after allegedly beating his gay neighbors — a man and a woman — bloody in Ogden. One victim needed surgery. You may not have heard of it. Prosecutors charged Allen with only one count of burglary.
And this week, two nice Mormon ladies from Santa Cruz decided to give their unwilling church one more chance to reconcile with its gay members and the LGBT community outside the flock.
While the rest of the country moves forward — New Hampshire, New York, Iowa, for goodness sake — this place seems perpetually stuck.
It probably helps that Thompson missed the headlines. Still, he’s optimistic.
“You can’t have a defeatist attitude,” he says. “You’ve got to press against it in order to even hope for a change.”
He points to Salt Lake City’s nondiscrimination ordinance and domestic partners registry, an anti-bullying law, polls that show Utahns supported the Common Ground Initiative (even if lawmakers didn’t).
“Maybe they’re not significant in some people’s minds, but there are measurables there,” he says. “People are having conversations. Change is going to come sooner or later.”
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Walsh: A step back for gay Utahns
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/walsh-step-ba…
Equality Utah chief to leave post for San Francisco move
Mike Thompson, who over the past four years has helped build Equality Utah into a respected advocacy group for LGBT rights, has resigned his post as executive director. The former oil company executive is relocating to San Francisco to work in the nonprofit field, according to this article. The Salt Lake Tribune (Utah) Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/equality-utah…
Equality Utah uses the LDS own words in a new campaign for Gay Rights
The day after Proposition 8, a Mormon supported ballot measure that outlawed same-sex marriage, passed in California, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints released a formal statement saying, “the church does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights.”
Last week however, a Utah bill that would have allowed two people who live together and who are mutually dependent and named in a will or trust to a wrongful death court action if a tragedy occurred, was defeated in a state senate committee after opponents of the bill argued that offering any legal recognition to same-sex couples, including the right to sue when a breadwinner suffers a wrongful death, could lead to a court decision legalizing gay marriage.
This week in an effort to sway voters in that state and prevent other of Equality Utah’s legislative initiative’s remaining bills from going down in flames, Equality Utah has come out swinging with a major multimedia ad blitz that turn the tables and proclaims…
“The Church does not object to rights for same-sex couples …”
In a press statement Equality Utah said…
Several polls have indicated that the majority of Utahns support the reasonable and basic protections provided for in the legislation of the Common Ground
Initiative.
Yet lawmakers rebuffed one of the Common Ground Initiative bills last week, recalling tired arguments that the proposals are somehow an attack on traditional marriage.
Far from pessimistic about the ability of Utah legislators see passed the tired arguments that surfaced during last week’s hearing, Equality Utah has launched a media campaign to help raise awareness of the reasonableness and broad public support of the basic ideals of the Common Ground Initiative.
“We’ve modeled our legislative proposals directly from the statements of the LDS Church,” said Mike Thompson, Equality Utah’s Executive Director. “We’re talking about basic rights that have broad public support and have nothing to do with marriage. We hope this media campaign will help Utahns see passed the fear-based arguments used against this legislation.”
More of Equality Utah uses the LDS own words in a new campaign for Gay Rights
Lez Get Real - Washington DC,District of Columbia,USA
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/equality-utah…
Another gay-rights bill goes down in Utah
Another Common Ground gay-rights bill has died. But this one wasn’t killed by opposing state lawmakers.
This measure was done in by the sponsor herself.
Rep. Jackie Biskupski, D-Salt Lake City, decided Friday to pull her bill, which would have sought voter approval to repeal the second part of Utah’s constitutional gay-marriage ban (known as Amendment 3) to avoid confusion about which protections are the legal equivalent of marriage.
“I believe the second clause of Amendment 3 has been misconstrued by many and will continue to be a stumbling block for reasonable policies in the future,” Biskupski said in a news release from Common Ground Initiative backer Equality Utah.
“However, I believe that the other Common Ground bills have broader support and cannot be construed as having anything to do with marriage. “By pulling this bill,” she continued, “we hope to make a good-faith effort to demonstrate that the protections we’re talking about have nothing to do with marriage and in no way conflict with Amendment 3.”
Some feared Biskupski’s bill was a move to pave the way for civil unions, which recent polls show Utahns overwhelmingly oppose. “By dumping that bill, we are bringing attention to the most important items on our legislative agenda,” said Mike Thompson, executive director of Equality Utah, items that he says most Utahns favor.
See Legislature: Another gay-rights bill goes down
Salt Lake Tribune
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/another-gay-r…
‘Call in gay’ in Utah? You could be fired
Utah lesbians and gays who join a national movement and skip work today by “calling in gay” are risking their jobs.
Besides missing a shift in a slumping economy during the holiday season, employees can be fired in the Beehive State simply for being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).
Equality Utah, as part of its Common Ground Initiative, is hoping the Legislature changes that in 2009 by making it illegal — in a bill sponsored by Rep. Christine Johnson, D-Salt Lake City — to dismiss workers because of their sexual orientation.
“There certainly is that risk” of being fired for calling in gay to work, said Mike Thompson, executive director of Equality Utah. “Consideration for employment or promotion in the workplace … should be based on performance and not on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Melva Sine, president of the Utah Restaurant Association, said she is familiar with today’s “Day Without a Gay” work stoppage, but her industry isn’t expecting a significant problem with absenteeism.
“Those who do have jobs feel fortunate,” Sine said, adding that she does not think an employee would be at risk for termination for coming out as gay. “A good employee is an asset, and it doesn’t matter what other types of affiliations they have.”
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‘Call in gay‘ in Utah? You could be fired
Salt Lake Tribune -
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/call-in-gay-i…
