This Day In Gay Utah History January 24th

January 24

1903 Mrs. Anne Thorne of 102 Vauxhall, Bridge Road, London SW writes afrend in the city inquiring about her brother Samuel Collins, the man whodied such an unfortunate death in Death’s [Hell]s} Hallow near the warm springs. Mrs. Thorne says his last letter to her was Jan 22, 1902 and of the last three letters she has written to him, 2 have been returned though the dead letter office with “dead” marked across the envelope. [Deseret News]

1946 Deseret News Old Timer Club elects Officers In 1946 female impersonator 'Madam LaPura Devonovitch" performed for the Deseret New's Old Timer Club at the Lion's House with two Mormon Apostles, A.E. Bower and M.E. Peterson present. Why can't post modern Mormons be as fun as their grand parents and lighten up a little? Old Time Mormons loved a good drag show.

1976 The Stanford Alumni Day College sponsored a conference on Human Sexuality: Sense and Nonsense at the University of Utah

1977 The first Advertisement for a Gay organization was published by the U of U Chronicle for the Gay Consciousness Group held Monday 7:30 PM OSH 133. The ad was paid for by Joe Redburn owner of the Sun Tavern.

1983- Gay Film director George Cukor died.

1988- Wasatch Affirmation Family Home Evening topic “Homosexuality in the Old Testament Scriptures”

1988-Sunday I invited Steve Breckenbury and James Connelly to go to the Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church’s state of the church’s address which was also a pot luck dinner. I saw Chuck Whyte there. Bruce Harmon said that Terry Thompson said that the water slide event has been changed from the 13^th to the 12^th.  So now I’ve got to get a hold of the Triangle and change our ad. I spent the late afternoon with Dr. John Reeves planning our summer “Fairy Gathering” Retreat. I think we got a lot accomplished and set some goals. At 6:30 I went to KRCL to tape Concerning Gays and Lesbians with Becky Moss. She engineered the show while I interviewed Dave Malmstrom about Affirmation. Becky thought it was a good show. I had some good questions because of my background with Affirmation.  Dave was well informed, articulate, and handled himself very well. And even though I am at odds with Affirmation I gained a respect for Dave from this interview. [1988 Journal of Ben Williams]

1989 Tuesday- At Unconditional Support tonight I led the meeting on VD and HIV testing. As an activity we went for the last performance at the art deco Center Theater on State Street and Broadway. After tonight the center theater will close its doors and be torn down. We saw Cocoon: The Return. In our group were Jeff Wood, Eric Christensen, Scott Robinson, Kurt, Steve Oldroyd, Darryl Webber, and Rick Eden.  After the movie we walked about the old movie palace looking and marveling at the art deco motif’s which be soon torn down and lost [1989 Journal of Ben Williams]

1991-The Centers for Disease Control announced that AIDS had become the second leading cause of death in men age 25-44, second only to accidents.

1993 Charles ``Chuck'' Lay (1962-1993) died of AIDS.

1995 Tuesday, LECTURER ON CURING HOMOSEXUALITY JEERED, CHEERED   By Joseph Bauman, Staff Writer A lecturer outraged many members of his audience, while winning the approval of many others, when he declared Monday that male homosexuality is a problem that can be cured. The position brought bitter denunciation by some of the approximately 250 attending the lecture, held in the University of Utah Union Building. Applause greeted statements by both detractors and supporters of the speaker, Joseph Nicolosi. At times, members of the audience laughed or hissed during the talk. Most who addressed him during a question-and-answer session after his talk were hostile toward Nicolosi, but some thanked him. Nicolosi, a clinical psychologist, founded the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic in Encino, Calif. There he supervises a staff of 18 therapists and specializes in treating homosexual men who are dissatisfied with their sexual orientation. The subject of his lecture, sponsored by the Historical Study Group at the U., was "Healing Homosexuality." Activists who handed out leaflets before his talk planned to stage a counter discussion afterward called "Healing Homophobia." Nicolosi puts the blame for male homosexuality largely on cold, distant fathers who reject their sons at an early age. Most homosexual men have had bad relationships with their fathers, he said. In fact, according to Nicolosi, the problem goes back even further, with the fathers not getting along with their own fathers. "The boy may reach out to the father once or twice," but then he may experience the pain of rejection. "What he does as a defense is (think), "You reject me, I'll reject you. You make me unimportant, I'll make you unimportant.' " The boy then fails to model himself on his father and does not develop a masculine orientation, according to Nicolosi. He doesn't learn to be assertive or to identify with his own male body. He experiences "alienation from the body." Nicolosi described the withdrawn "sissy" type, unwilling to relate to other boys. This type has a 75 percent chance of turning out homosexual, he said. He claimed that the homosexual man is simply trying to explore his own masculinity by seeking a real man to identify with. They are exploring the male nature through involvement with a man, he said. The problem is that a real man doesn't want to bond with the homosexual, who ends up bonding with another homosexual who lacks the same personality traits, he said. A key to therapy is to help the homosexual come to terms with his rejecting father, to accept and forgive him, he said. That will help to bring out his inherent heterosexual nature, he said. Through therapy, the men who seek help begin to value gender distinctions. "They begin to discover the masculine potential within them." After the man becomes friends with a woman, he may feel affection for her and develop a heterosexual attraction, according to Nicolosi. A man who has gone through the program and reoriented himself will be able to deal with homosexual urges that may surface from time to time, he said. Homosexual tendencies may surface when the man doesn't feel good about himself, feels weak and has experienced disappointment and hurt, he said. Debra Burrington of the Women's Studies Program at the university was one of those handing out fliers about the "Healing Homophobia" session. A visiting assistant professor, she said those holding that session were not any particular group but concerned faculty members and students. "I think his basic assumptions are flawed," she said. "The majority of the (psychological) profession - at least in their votes . . . don't consider it a disease." The American Medical Association recently voted to advise its members to take a positive approach toward their patients, "helping gay and lesbian people accept who they are and live positive lives - in other words, being themselves." She said she believes that the kind of lecture that Nicolosi gave promotes self-loathing among homosexuals.  © 1998 Deseret News Publishing Co.

1996-Government officials in the Netherlands announced that as part of their human rights policy they would offer assistance to gay and lesbian organizations in developing countries.

1998-  Saturday- Mayor Deedee Corradini said Friday she will personally intervene if any Salt Lake City employees are discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. But she will not go so far as to veto a repeal of an ordinance that would have made such protection a part of the city code. ``I made a decision shortly after the council action that I will neither veto nor sign this ordinance,'' Corradini said to some 30 community organization representatives. ``I am the administrator of this government, not the policy-maker.''   For the next hour, speakers argued and pleaded with the mayor to reconsider her decision not to veto the action taken Jan. 13 by the City Council, which voted 4-3 to repeal a month-old ordinance that extended job protections to city workers regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, disability or sexual orientation.   The council members who voted for the repeal-- Bryce Jolley, Carlton Christensen, Roger Thompson and Keith Christensen -- did not want sexual orientation included. At Friday's meeting, Corradini passed out a letter stating that the city's human resources director had not received a single complaint of sexual-orientation discrimination in eight years. University of Utah law professor Terry Kogan said that proved nothing. ``If gays and lesbian employees of this city do not feel they are protected, of course they are not going to the director of human resources,'' he said. ``The fact there have been no reports of discrimination is simply a reflection of the fact there are no [protective] laws on the books.''   Corradini started the meeting by declaring she was ``disappointed and offended'' by what she termed ``press intimidation.'' She was referring to an article in The Salt Lake Tribune that included a quote from a gay activist who said the gay community would not support her in a re-election effort if she did not veto the repeal. On Thursday, the Utah Progressive Network reported that the mayor had decided she would only meet with eight people and would exclude reporters, conditions UPNet said could scotch the meeting. But Corradini's spokesman, Ken Connaughton, on Friday said the conditions were ``just a suggestion to make everything work smoother. There never was an either-or situation. As it turned out, everything worked fine.'' The mayor appeared to listen attentively, often nodding as several of those in attendance made their points. Rev. Sylvia Behrend of the First Unitarian Church struck a conciliatory note. ``What can we do to change your mind?'' she asked. ``Tell us, and we will do it.''  Alexius Gallegos of the Centro Civico Mexicano praised the mayor's efforts on behalf of the city's Mexican-American residents, then noted that when the job-protection ordinance was passed in December ``it was applauded as a good thing.'' ``It doesn't matter that this is a policy decision,'' Gallegos said. ``If we allow discrimination to continue against one group, other discrimination may come back.''  East High School student Ivy Fox said the message from the council action was harmful. ``We have the impression it's acceptable to discriminate,'' she said.   Added Diana Cannon of the Utah American Civil Liberties Union, ``If you aren't going to veto, what are you going to do?'' The mayor acknowledged that some gay city employees are fearful of job discrimination. ``They can feel free to come to me personally,''  Corradini said. ``I won't stand for it.'' The mayor also urged the activists at the meeting to work with the City Council on the issue, to which Lucy Malin of Utah National Organization for Women responded that the reason the meeting was happening at all was because the council members were resistant. ``We plead with you to change your position,'' Malin said.   Afterward, though they had not gotten the veto they sought, those at the meeting said the meeting had gone well. ``I'm pleased,''  Kogan said. ``She did listen. It will be hard for her not to take this group seriously in the future.'' 01/24/1998 Page: B2 (SLTribune)

 1998  The Salt Lake Tribune Letter: Inside Gay and Lesbian Politics in Salt Lake City Council Races The Rolly Report titled ``How Gay, Lesbian Politics Came Out of the Closet in Utah'' (Tribune, Jan. 11) contained a number of factual errors about the 1997 District 5 Salt Lake City Council race that I want to address. First of all, Gay and Lesbian Utah Democrats (GLUD) did not ``back'' candidate Jackie Biskupski because GLUD formally ceased to exist in 1996 -- according to a press release issued by the organization itself that was the basis of an article that appeared in The Tribune and elsewhere. It's my understanding that GLUD's former head, David Nelson, was involved in the District 5 election in his role as a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a national organization whose mission is to give money to openly gay/lesbian political candidates. Thus, to say that GLUD's leadership resigned and the organization became dormant because of a split in the gay community created by this 1997 election is inaccurate, given that GLUD didn't exist at the time. Second, it is also erroneous to say that the Utah Human Rights Coalition (UHRC) endorsed and worked for either Claudia O'Grady or Roger Thompson in the District 5 race. The only statement Rolly gets right about UHRC is that it is a ``gay and lesbian rights advocacy group.'' This is why the UHRC was centrally involved in providing support to the students of the gay/straight alliances in 1996. UHRC is not an electoral politics organization and it has never endorsed, given money to or otherwise supported a candidate for elected office. As an organization UHRC's electoral activities have been limited to ``get out the vote'' phone calling that does not advocate any particular candidate and a public debate of all four of the Republican and Democratic candidates for the District 2 congressional race in 1996. Whenever UHRC members and/or leaders work for political candidates, they do so as individuals, and we encourage our members to be active in local politics. UHRC members worked on their own for various candidates in the last Salt Lake City Council elections, both before and after the primary election. Rolly is perhaps accurate to say that the District 5 election caused a split in the gay and lesbian community. I say ``perhaps,'' because it is fallacious to suggest that all members of that community are of one mind when it comes to political issues or candidates. The splits between gay and lesbian conservatives, liberals and progressives have existed for decades; the District 5 election simply brought this to the surface in Utah. Finally, by writing this particular ``Report'' in the days just preceding a landmark City Council vote on a gay/lesbian civil rights ordinance, Rolly engaged in a kind of scapegoating -- in this case of UHRC and its leadership -- that places blame erroneously on the organization for what he supposes will be the repeal of the new ordinance. This is not unlike the kind of scapegoating the Utah Democratic Party heaps on the gay/lesbian community whenever our issues ``cause'' the defeat of a candidate. DEBRA BURRINGTON Salt Lake City (01/24/1998 SLTribune Page: A8)

2004 GLBTCCU hosted its first GLBT Town Meeting with 65 people from 45 organizations attending.

2004  “Wonka Vision’ Presented by Crown Prince 28 Chad Keller Trapp Door - 9:00 PM $5 - Proceeds benefit the Peoples Concern Fund

2004-Director of film with gay LDS theme still hopeful for screenings in Utah PARK CITY -- C. Jay Cox, director of "Latter Days," hasn't given up hope that his film will someday be shown in Utah. The movie, which is about gay members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was recently dropped by Madstone Theaters in Salt Lake City without ever being screened. During a panel discussion Thursday at the unaffiliated Queer Lounge set up during the Sundance Film Festival, Cox said he believes the decision was based on pressure from conservatives in Utah who threatened to boycott the art-house movie chain. The theater said the decision was made because of the film’s "lack of artistic integrity and quality" -- that is, it just wasn’t good enough to screen. "Yeah, movies only get shown if they’re 'Citizen Kane,' " he joked to The Salt Lake Tribune after the panel. He hopes the simmering controversy over the movie will ensure that it gets screened somewhere in Utah; perhaps after the fuss, people would want to see it just out of curiosity. Cox heard about threats through an employee at the theater, who "implied that some of these threats were coming from high up in Salt Lake," Cox said. "We were getting criticized for having the audacity to make a film about gay Mormons, because of course there's no such thing," Cox said. But during the film festival circuit ("Latter Days" was not screened at Sundance), "every festival we would go to, people would get up and say, 'I'm a gay Mormon and this is my story.' "Panel members discussed how to get gay-themed films into the mainstream -- and whether that should be the goal in the first place. Even when bad movies or television shows are made about gay people, some say, " 'Oh, this is good for us.' Well, is it?" said Ryan Shiraki, director of "Home of Phobia," screening as part of Sundance’s Park City at Midnight section.” Latter Days" is the first directing foray for Cox, who worked as a screenwriter on "Sweet Home Alabama.” My next movie is so not gay. I'm now doing one on chick car racing," Cox said. "The only thing that would get my family to talk to me again was to make a NASCAR movie."-- Christy Karras

2004 Activists seek to form anti-bias commission By Heather May The Salt Lake Tribune The way Salt Lake City seems and the way it really is don't jibe for Michael Mitchell.” This feels like a very white . . . one-religion town. The demographics don't hold that to be true," says the executive director of Equality Utah, a gay political action committee. Mitchell is working to change the capital's flavor by creating what apparently would be the state's first Human Rights Commission to examine how people are treated in their daily lives. An early draft of the ordinance already has been criticized as a feel-good, do-nothing board because it focuses on promoting equal treatment through education and hearings to discuss prejudice. It lacks power to investigate and rectify specific claims of discrimination. That could change. Mayor Rocky Anderson's office has seen the draft, and his staffers are trying to find ways to give it teeth. The model may be the city's Civilian Review Board, which investigates allegations of police misconduct and makes recommendations to the police chief.” We would like this commission to have investigative and lobbying powers," said Blythe Nobleman, the mayor's minority affairs and communications coordinator. "We see it as an opportunity for a strong and effective commission that can make a difference in the community." According to Mitchell's research, such commissions are common. The Boulder, Colo., Office of Human Rights investigates complaints while a commission hears appeals and seeks remedies, including requiring an employer to reinstate an employee. In Denver, the Agency for Human Rights and Community Relations can help mediate persona land community disputes. At the least, Mitchell wants Salt Lake City's ordinance to "create a formal dialogue between the city government and Salt Lake City residents regarding human rights. It's an opportunity to formally look at issues that affect us and divide us.” The ordinance promises to spark a conversation about which classes of minorities deserve protection. A part of the proposal declares that discrimination on the grounds of "race, religion, color, ancestry, age, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, medical condition or national origin" harms the city. In the past, the City Council has balked at protecting city employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation. The 1997council approved the protection only to see the 1998 council repeal it. Anderson reinstated the language in an executive order after he entered office in 2000. Councilman Carlton Christensen voted for the repeal and is the only remaining member on the council from that time. He is still skeptical about naming protected classes.” I tend to think there is a broad range of discrimination," said Christensen, who wasn't aware of the Human Rights Commission idea. "When you get into classes, sometimes you omit other forms of discrimination for the political draw of certain classes. Sexual orientation is one of those." Mitchell says a rights commission that excludes gender identity and sexual orientation would be a "cowardly" one. Council Chairwoman Jill Remington Love -- who has been working on the ordinance and won her seat in 2001 with the help of Mitchell’s group -- also believes in keeping the language. "It's important to the different minority groups in the community to be named. . . . I hope that we can say the words.” Still, ordinance backers say the focus of the commission won't be on anti-gay bias. They foresee looking into the status of children in the city. Or holding hearings on religious tension or the glass ceiling women face in employment. For now, residents who feel they have been discriminated against in housing or employment can seek help from the state’s Antidiscrimination and Labor Division. It investigates allegations against employers with 15 or more workers and against companies or people who own four or more housing units. Sexual orientation is nota protected class under the state law. Director Sherrie Hayashi said Salt Lake City could create stricter standards and outlaw discrimination by every employer, for example. In other cities, rights commissions hear such allegations and even seek prosecution. Ken Gordon, chairman of the Human Relations Commission in Fort Collins, Colo., said such power is important. His city's commission doesn’t have it. It focuses on education and awarding do-gooders, while another city agency investigates claims. The commission has met with the accused to talk about the problems. It also stages forums to discuss racism.hmay@sltrib.com

2004 (Utah Gay Forum) I just wanted to echo the things that Tim said. I agree 100%. I just wanted to add a couple of points: 1. Madstone agreed quite some time ago to how the movie. If they thought it was such a bad movie when they were asked to show it, why in the world did they agree to carry forward and show it? 2. If it's such a horrible movie like some people says it is, why did it get such great reviews at several gay film festivals? Even the fact that they were "gay" film festivals says more about the quality of the movie! I know this will sound stereotypical, but it does have some truth to it: most gay people I know are extremely critical about artsy stuff. If it made it past my hard-to-please artsy gay friends with lots of approval and accolades, it can't be so bad that an agreement has to be broken to make sure it's not shown. Those are my thoughts. Aaron Cloward.

2004-(Utah Gay Forum) Are we ever going to learn the old phrase, "you attract more flies with honey than you do with vinegar"? Was the goal of the protest just to draw attention or to actually try and change someone's opinion on gay marriage? My goodness, I'm gay and an extreme supporter of equal rights to marry and even I would have been put off by the Lesbian Avengers. Does anyone honestly think that they're going to change any LDS leader's mind by yelling them or purposely trying to disgust them or offend them? Change is not going to come by "in your face" protest. In fact, it just pisses people off even more and makes them hate gay people with even more vengeance. I am honestly embarrassed that the Salt Lake gay community was represented that day by the actions of these people. All the hard work that so many people have done, all the hours of lobbying (in a dignified manner) to try to change things are all for naught when people pull sh*t like the Lesbian Avengers. My advice: If you want to change people's minds about gay marriage, don't scream and yell and disgust them. Show loving couples who have been committed to each other for years. Show them that gay relationships work. Show them that gay couples contribute to society and build society instead of tearing it down like they think will happen. Wow. I'm still just absolutely baffled. At this rate, with groups doing stuff like they did, we'll never get gay friendly legislation passed. I guess I better pack my bags and just move to Canada. Apparently the gay community is doing something right in that country. Aaron Cloward

Eric Tierney

2006 Tuesday Mike [Romero] and I watched Love Valour and Compassion last Saturday with Jerry Rapier reading/acting this young man's part. Our condolences to all whose lives are in sorrow now, and as Shakespeare would say we are all deminished. Ben Williams Article Last Updated: 1/24/2006 01:15 AM Actor dies hours after closing of SLC play Mortality tale: One of Eric Tierney's lines was, 'None of us may be around next summer' By Ellen Fagg The Salt Lake Tribune Actor and writer Eric Tierney died early Monday, just eight hours after the final performance of "Love! Valour! Compassion!" a play in which he had a starring role. Tierney, who was 26, died of liver failure associated with hepatitis B. Tierney performed last week in the first four shows of Wasatch Theatre Company's production at Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center before he fell ill and was admitted to the hospital on Thursday. Director Jerry Rapier, who filled in for Tierney as Perry, one of eight gay New Yorkers in the play, joined about three dozen friends and family members who gathered at LDS Hospital on Sunday evening to say goodbye. At the hospital, one line from "Beautiful Dreamer," the song that opens the play's second act, kept running through Rapier's mind: "Gone are the cares of life's busy throng." "In theater, you spend such a concentrated period of time together, you become a family," said Rapier, who had invited Tierney to audition for a role in Terrence McNally's play set in the mid-1990s about the AIDS generation. "To be doing a play about paying attention to your life because you don't know when it will end -well, all of these lines came to mean so much all of a sudden. There's a line that Perry says: 'None of us may be around next summer.' " Tierney, a graduate of West Jordan High School and the University of Utah's Acting Training Program, wrote an events column, "The Gay Agenda," as well as theater reviews and arts stories for Salt Lake Metro, the biweekly gay and lesbian newspaper. He had performed in local shows, notably the Salt Lake Acting Company's 2002 production of "Big Love," but his current role marked a return to the stage after several years away. "It renewed his passion for acting," said his mother, Lee Ann Tierney, of Butte, Mont., who in a phone interview on Monday recalled the witty name of a play her oldest son had written and performed in during junior high: "A Murder with a Twist of Lemon."The oldest of four children, Tierney was the ringleader in the family's parade who enjoyed teasing and prodding his two younger brothers, Chris and Kyler, and sister, Carey. He liked to direct his siblings in acting out a favorite cartoon, "Thundercats," his mother recalled. When his sister interviewed him for a high school paper last year, Tierney said what he wanted to be remembered for was "being good to his family, whom he loved." Throughout the day Monday, friends and family remembered the jokes he told in an Irish brogue, or the deadpan delivery that underscored his wicked sense of humor. In the hospital, when friends repeatedly asked the dying man what they could do for him, Tierney found the joke. "Well," he said. "Are you using your liver?" That wit was on display even in the song he liked to sing in his rich baritone on karaoke outings, "Mack the Knife," written by Kurt Weill for the 1920s-era "Threepenny Opera," the kind of song you might expect to hear from a 66-year-old, not a 26-year-old. "Being 26 years old, he had so much energy and enthusiasm," said Michael Aaron, Tierney's editor at SLMetro. "He was constantly bombarding himself with so many things. He wanted to be in so many different productions, wanted to volunteer, wanted to help all of his friends be bigger and better stars. He was constantly filling his plate up with more and more things to do, then trying to figure out how to get things done." He was motivated by Utah voters' passing of Measure 3, the constitutional amendment banning gay marriages, to become more vocal about politics, and was working with two friends on a documentary, "I Can't Believe It's Not Marriage." For a time, he even considered attending law school, but his role in "Love! Valour! Compassion!" rekindled his desire to act. "The dude had an unnatural disposition to be natural," said Lane Richins, a longtime friend who attended acting classes with Tierney at the U. "The guy could take a role, and no matter what it was, he could make it seem like a regular person. He would just tear into any role he had, like a wolf on meat." He was kind, too, Richins said, recounting one night back in their freshman year, when Tierney had driven all the way from home in West Jordan to a party. Once he arrived, about 2 a.m., he found Richins was drunk, and so he tucked his friend into bed, told him a bedtime yarn, and then drove across the valley to go home. Tierney and another friend, Pearce Danner, used to joke about how they planned to grow old together, a pair of crotchety old men bothering the nurses in the retirement home. "He was proficient in things from politics to wine to books to musicals, just everything," Danner said. "He and I could have an argument about something I thought I was well-versed in, and he put me to shame." And so early Monday morning, as Tierney's brain was swelling as a result of liver failure, Danner took his turn in the hospital room to sing his farewell, cheesy songs the pair had sung with their friends so many times, songs such as "America," the old Simon and Garfunkel song, and "Thank You for Being a Friend." Just another friend, dying too young. Gone are the cares of life's busy throng. "For those of us involved in the play," director Rapier said, "we found some comfort there, that he had found himself again." Contact Ellen Fagg at ellenf@sltrib.com or 801-257-8621. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@sltrib .com. Eric Tierney 1979-2006

2006 Buttars has no morals Salt Lake Tribune I was shocked by the Jan. 22 Tribune article touting West Jordan Republican Sen. Chris Buttars as a "morals crusader." I have never witnessed such a misnomer in all my young life. Sen. Buttars does not stand for morals. He stands for religion, which is an entirely different subject. He does not respect, support or befriend his neighbors, as his religion admonishes him to do. Indeed, he does not do as his Savior instructs him, to love one another. This is the man who claims that all homosexuals are immoral, when I highly doubt he has ever really listened to a homosexual in his life. His views are archaic and infantile, much like the bully on the playground who only likes those who are exactly as he is.I am deeply offended that Sen. Buttars truly believes that I, and others in the LGBT community, have no morals. We most certainly do. We have families and successful children. We pay taxes, sit on juries, buy houses, go to PTA and Neighborhood Watch meetings, donate time and money to charity and even go to church. A great many of us have found spirituality and faith in God, and we live our lives in a very moral fashion. He, on the other hand, does not, simply by refusing to live his religion and save judgment for his Maker. Shame on The Tribune for classifying this man as someone who is doing this out of "moral conviction." He is a bigot, and there is no skirting the truth behind his so-called conviction. He doesn't stand for moral values. He stands for hate. Connie A. Anast  Murray

2007 Wednesday Deseret Morning News, Wednesday, January 24, 2007 School-club bill called unnecessary By Tiffany Erickson Deseret Morning News After being called "unnecessary, " a bill that would require parental consent for students to join non-curricular clubs made it out of committee with a 10-4 favorable recommendation Tuesday. The bill, HB326, would also give parents the authority to view any content and material to be distributed in a club seven days prior to the meeting. And it would require the school appoint a faculty advisor to each non-curricular club. Some schools currently have parent volunteers and paraprofessionals as advisers. However, if "the assignment would violate the conscience" of the faculty member they could refuse and not be subject to a negative evaluation. Moreover, bill sponsor Rep. Aaron Tilton, R-Springville, told members of the House Education Committee that if the measure passed and was in statute, the Utah Attorney General's Office could defend districts sued over club application decisions, thus freeing districts from legal costs. But Carol Lear, legal specialist for the State Board of Education, said the State Board of Education considers the bill unnecessary, and under board rule there is flexibility for local boards to make their own decisions. "Alpine School District's club policy currently requires parental permission on a yearly basis for students to participate in clubs," said Jerri Mortenson, spokeswoman for that district. "We don't require any teacher to sponsor or advise a club and teachers can already say they don't want to do it without ramifications."In our district it's largely an unnecessary policy because we would already be in compliance," she said. "We don't object to anything in the bill, but we also don't think it is necessarily needed," said Chris Williams, Davis District spokesman. American Civil Liberties Union of Utah leaders said they don't like the idea of teachers being able to refuse a club advisory post if they are assigned because it could be used as an easy out, resulting in students not being able to have the clubs they want. Moreover, Margaret Plane, legal director for ACLU of Utah, said they are concerned that requiring permission slips could exclude students  with disengaged parents — uninvolved and absent parents are more difficult to get permission from. "It would exclude students who need clubs the most," Plane said. But the Utah Eagle Forum's Gayle Ruzicka said parents have the right  to give consent and know what is going on in non-curricular clubs. "Parents need to know what is going on and they certainly need to be involved, and to suggest that we can't (require) permission slips for anything that is involved at the school because parents who are not involved in the lives of their children wouldn't be available to sign the slip is really a put-down to parents," Ruzicka said. The bill is similar to last year's bill that originally targeted gay-straight alliances. Tilton is currently working on the bill with Rep. Jackie Biskupski, D- Salt Lake, who is openly gay. Biskupski said she is working on some amendments that have not yet been made public. "We'll talk again before the bill goes before the House floor," Tilton said.

•           You're invited to a FREE HRC screening of the Sundance film  "For the Bible Tells Me So." Wednesday, January 24 @ 4:00 PM Broadway Theatre 111 E 300 S. SLC, Utah Tickets will be given on a first come, first served basis* The director of the film as well as HRC president, Joe Solmonese will be attending this screening, and be available for a question and answer period following the movie.  *50 tickets are available on a first come-first serve basis.  Wristbands will be given to those in line starting at 3:15 and whomever has a wristband will get a ticket.  Seating for the theater starts 10 minutes prior to 4, and the movie will start promptly at 4p.

2008 Tribune Editorial Outdated law: Utah should allow same-sex couples to adopt. Utah's law banning adoptions by gay and lesbian couples and unmarried straight couples was a deplorable codification of bigotry in 2000 when it was passed. That hasn't changed. But after eight years the law has become an illogical anachronism, considering the results of new studies, and it should be changed.

2008 Feature | Gloves Come Off: Round One begins at the Legislature to end prejudice against the transgendered By Eric S. Peterson Salt Lake City Weekly When Ariana Losco felt her supervisor grab her wrist and push her back into her chair sneering, “You’re not going anywhere,” it churned up dark memories. Memories of when Ariana was David—his memories like a stranger’s, even though they were of her past. The clench of her supervisor’s grip conjured up the recollection of walking through her high school parking lot after the homecoming football game when a group of schoolmates swarmed her, carrying her off in the dark, promising she would be hanged that night and not live to see the next day. But that was more than 20 years ago and, after 10 years living as a transgender woman, Losco decided that dealing with the same kind of malice from her boss at the health-care facility where she worked, was just too much. Struggling with hate and fear in her workplace was not what Losco wanted in her new life. Driving home after work, sobbing uncontrollably, was not how she pictured ending her workdays. Lawyers told Losco they would be happy to fight a discrimination case for her—that is, if there were a law on the books to protect her.  Discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is “basically not against the law, simple as that,” explains John Black, one of the attorneys Losco had contacted.  So Losco now waits, pinning her hopes on a proposed bill at the 2008 Utah legislative session to extend workplace protection to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.  And for members of the “trans” community, passage of this law will require more than winning the tolerance of staunchly conservative Republican legislators. They must also shore up solidarity with their allies in the queer community.  The Chosen Workplace discrimination has always existed, and workers seeking protection from fear and manipulation on the job has been an evolving civil-rights battle. Over time, and with a growing body of case law, legal protection for employees now includes a number of categories—comprising both biological and chosen traits—including sex, race, age, religion, pregnancy and others. While these reflections of individual citizens’ identities are protected, state and federal law have left in the lurch a person’s sexual identity and orientation. Critics have argued that such protections have gone too far, opening a Pandora’s box by which subgroups will clamor for special legal privileges.  Longtime gay- and transgender-rights critic Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, sees the argument this way: “They pass this law and, pretty soon, some guy with tattoos all over his face is going to sue for discrimination.” The slippery-slope argument presented by Buttars and other critics strikes to the core of the controversy surrounding the lives of members of the LGBT community.  The argument in Utah always comes back to the issue of choice. Should choice be granted protection of the law? Is it the Legislature’s place to validate some citizens’ choices and not others? Anti-gay-rights forces say gender identity and sexual orientation are “choices” and, as such, differ from skin color and age, neither of which can be changed or controlled. Others disagree. “As a lesbian, I didn’t make a choice,” says Rep. Christine Johnson, D-Salt Lake City, sponsor of the 2008 nondiscrimination bill. “I was chosen.”  Ultimately, the realization of this bill may hang on the idea of choice, which may be the reason that a federal version of Johnson’s bill (which passed the House on Nov. 7, 2007, but awaits Senate approval) left out the transgender community altogether.  It simply may be too much for some heterosexuals (and some gays and lesbians, too) to accept that a person could feel completely detached from the body he or she was born with. This detachment can grow so strong as to lead a person to change what nature initially imposed by employing hormone treatments and a surgeon’s scalpel. But, then again, the reality of sex and identity is largely misunderstood simply because it’s one of the greatest taboos of public discourse.  For many trans individuals, however, the choice to change even under the surgeon’s blade is not only natural, but the only way to live authentically. Natural Transsexual- “You are what we call a ‘natural’ transsexual,” explained the Navy physician to young Navy cadet Losco. Still David, and still a man at the time, but very much in search of herself, Losco (who wasn’t using that name yet) had wound up in the Navy at her mother’s request and spent more than seven months in a San Diego boot camp and the Naval School of Health Sciences. Only a week away from completing training with certification as a Navy hospital corpsman, Losco found herself blacking out during runs.  It was then that Navy endocrinologist told Losco her hormone levels were completely out of balance and that she would need testosterone injections to remedy the problem. “When I asked him what would happen if I got more estrogen, he said, ‘Well, you’ll become more … female,’ ” Losco says. “When I told him I wanted that, he said, ‘You’re going to have to get that on your own; the Navy’s not going to cover that.’” A week later, Losco left the Navy, returned home to Florida, changed her name and started on estrogen hormone therapy. “That’s when I started down the path,” she says. Once she left the Navy, Losco accepted an identity that was not only written into her biology but also matched up with the way she was raised. The youngest of eight, Losco says she was raised mostly by her five sisters who took care of her while her mother was at work. They treated their young “brother” like another sister.  As soon as Losco started school and until she graduated, the effeminate voice she knew as hers drew mockery from schoolmates. “I like to think of my high school days as legalized public torture,” she recalls, with a nervous chuckle. Growing up in the small rural town of Kissimee, Fla., a “cow town” as Losco calls it, the treatment she received was endlessly cruel. The usual vignettes of happy high school memories were, for Losco, marred by terror. The night of the homecoming football game, she says, a pack of kids bent on lynching her for being a “fag” carried her off school grounds. She escaped that night, but it didn’t end there. One day while walking home from school, a car swerved intentionally from the side of the road onto the sidewalk and slammed into Losco from behind, the shove of the bumper throwing her over a neighbor’s hedge. The car peeled off, leaving her in a heap on the ground. While not seriously injured, Losco remains scarred by the memory. But those were the scars of David—the birth name of the man who desperately wanted to be a woman. In 2007, after having lived a decade as a fully transitioned woman and happily married for the past 15 years, Losco was startled to find her nursing supervisor at the care facility where she worked allegedly treating her with the malice she thought she had left behind decades ago. As a nursing assistant, Losco had been making a living in Utah, where she had moved to help care for her ailing mother in 2002. When her mother died of kidney cancer, Losco decided to stay and make a career in elder care.  Losco alleges her supervisor began harassing her for her transgenderism, and her new life in Utah became an ordeal. “She would call me a ‘freak’ every time I passed by and once [after I complained], she said, ‘You’re just insecure because you have breasts and a penis.’” Losco says her supervisor one day pinned her by her wrist in her chair. She told Losco she couldn’t leave the premises. Her shift had ended but the supervisor demanded she take care of another work errand. Losco immediately filed a complaint against the supervisor with her employer, who informed her they would be handling the case “in house.” Management put Losco and her supervisor on different shifts. They also urged Losco “to develop a thick skin.”  Losco was fired from her assistant nursing job on Jan. 10, 2008. A spokesman for her former Tooele County employer would not address Losco’s specific complaints. He says the reason for her termination was not because she is a transgender person, but because she had disparaged the company in a recent Associated Press story.  Lost in Law-One of the most nationally prominent transgender cases happened here in Utah when, in 2005, Krystal Etsitty sued the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) for wrongful termination. Krystal was “Michael” at the time she started driving a bus for UTA in 2002. Etsitty disclosed to her superiors when she was hired that she was undergoing gender transition. Soon after, she was fired. Etsitty lost her case in Utah’s federal court and also on appeal at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. In a written statement, UTA attorney Jennifer Kohler argued that the 10th Circuit Court upheld the Utah ruling in 2007 because transgender individuals aren’t protected by existing discrimination law and because UTA had valid nondiscriminatory grounds for firing. “Etsitty sued for discrimination based on not following male stereotypes,” writes Kohler, but “UTA had a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for firing her: the fear of legal liability from one of its male employees using women’s restrooms while on a UTA route.”  Because Etsitty was hired on as an “extra board” operator, meaning she had no permanent route, UTA couldn’t accommodate the dozens of public restrooms she might have used along the several routes she was assigned. The case pointed out that, even if discrimination had occurred, current law could do nothing about it. “When employers and society as a whole don’t correct themselves, then the Legislature is important [in] creating the structure that other people won’t self-impose,” says bill sponsor Johnson. Johnson’s bill would extend existing nondiscrimination law on a state level to individuals based on sexual orientation and sex identity. While workplace discrimination laws cover hiring and firing and everything in between, Johnson wrote a specific mechanism into the bill prohibiting employers from adopting any kind of “quota” system. “We’re not telling [employers] how many members of a diverse community you need to employ; we’re just saying you can’t discriminate.”  She also wrote the bill to allow religious educational institutions such as Catholic schools or Brigham Young University to be exempted. With these conditions in place, Johnson hopes the bill will be received as protecting people who want to be judged only on the quality of their work.  “We know people are getting fired [because of their sexual identity and orientation], and it’s time to do something about it,” Johnson says. Johnson realizes she’s got her work cut out for her in winning in a Republican-dominated Legislature that has historically fought as a bloc against all gay- and transgender-rights bills. “I think many legislators would be surprised to find this kind of discrimination is going on,” she says.  Johnson hopes to at least start a dialogue this session and imagines her greatest success for 2008 will be to introduce the needs of a community which may seem alien to the largely white, heterosexual male Legislature. “I’m going to thank my colleagues for hearing the bill and then gently move them forward.”  For Buttars, this bill only brings back bad memories. “This whole thing is just Act 2 of affirmative action,” he says. Despite the non-quota mechanism Johnson has written into the bill, which she believes “deflates” the affirmative-action argument, Buttars remains unconvinced the bill won’t prompt a barrage of lawsuits.  “What do you think will happen when a gay sues for not getting hired? Or if the guy who was twice as qualified [doesn’t get hired], he’ll turn around and sue, as well. There’s no winning,” Buttars says. Johnson, however, doesn’t see the inclusion of these extra groups for protection as the Pandora’s box that Buttars and others fear. “We already protect some people now for the choices they make, like not discriminating based on religion,” Johnson says. Buttars says that, while discrimination is wrong, it doesn’t necessarily mean the government has a place in stopping it if that means favoring a subgroup. Laws exist to protect people from religious discrimination, for example, but that doesn’t mean there’s a separate law protecting only Mormons, argues Buttars. Other critics worry how the law would work in practice. “The law only understands human action and behavior,” argues Paul Mero of The Sutherland Institute, a conservative think tank, “and now we’re introducing a concept [sexual orientation and identity]. The problem is how do we define sexual orientation and identity under the practice of the law?”  Mero worries that, in practice, if an LGBT employee were fired, and the employer wasn’t aware of his or her sexual orientation, the employee could then use the issue of sex identity or orientation as grounds for a lawsuit. Even with transgender employees, for example, where the change is physically noticeable, Mero believes the legislation is overly broad. “Working relationships are very real and very nuanced, and [this bill] is trying to create a civil statute to broadly address these nuances. It’s not sound policy to me,” Mero says. Buttars agrees and considers the bill to offer unfair privileges to a subgroup. “This nation doesn’t protect subgroups, of any kind,” Buttars says. “Some people not liking other people is an issue, sure. But that doesn’t justify a complete separate protection.” The transgender community, however, is not necessarily arguing for separate protection or treatment as some new group. Many members seek a different understanding of gender.  Will Carlson, director of Equality Utah, supports Johnson’s bill. He believes existing laws and institutions are stuck to a strictly anatomical understanding and interpretation of gender. “Transition is a very personal matter. How far they go and when they decide to [make the transition] … these are private decisions. What matters is that they clearly present their gender,” Carlson says. “What’s going on in their pants is really irrelevant. “We’re not trying to get the Legislature to condone the morality of the LGBT community. We just want to stop people from getting fired for no other reason than ... being LGBT,” Carlson says.  Still, whether or not legislators will have a chance even to hear the bill remains to be seen. As of press time, the bill has been moved to the conservative Business and Labor Committee, from which it may never escape to the legislative floor. Long Road Ahead -Rebecca Wilder knows about transgender discrimination. “I was fired as soon as I told my boss that I was going to do [gender transition],” Wilder says. In 2000, she was a terminal manager for a since-bankrupt Salt Lake City trucking company. Looking back, Wilder says she could understand the company’s argument though, at the time, it was a shock for her to be escorted off the premises of the company like a trespasser. The day before, she had been salaried upper-management. “Behind closed doors, they told me they couldn’t handle all the rumors and attention I would bring to the company being a transsexual,” Wilder says. The machismo of the male-dominated trucking industry was apparently no place for Wilder. But losing her job was only the beginning. Wilder soon found she couldn’t find health insurance that would underwrite her as a woman since her birth certificate categorized her as male. A Boise, Idaho, native, Wilder came from one of only three states (along with Ohio and Tennessee) that won’t allow people to change their sex on their birth certificates. Because some of her documents were legally changed to reflect her new sex but others could not be, red flags shot up for health insurers. Wilder has been denied health-care coverage for the past seven years. On top of that, her ex-wife sued for custody of their two children after Wilder started the transition process. During the two-and-a-half-year-long court battle, Wilder managed to keep custody of her eldest son but lost complete custody of her younger son who was 4 during the trial. “Without a job, I just couldn’t pay my attorney any longer,” Wilder says, of her lost custody battle. “He’s 11 now, and I haven’t seen him since. I just hope I’ll be able to track him down when he turns 18.” In addition to losing custody, the judge in the case required that Wilder attend one year of psychotherapy. “I was treated worse than a sex offender,” she says. Wilder could not keep a steady job for the next five years. “I would go through interviews and get as far as talking salary, but once they ran a background check and found out about my past, suddenly they didn’t have an opening anymore,” she says. Wilder went from a management job that paid $52,000 a year with a company car and expense account to a $6-per-hour barista position at the Utah Pride Center’s coffee house. Wilder eventually decided the only way she could avoid the rampant discrimination in the trucking industry was to be her own boss. In 2004, she started her own long-haul freight company, based out of Ogden and running south to Mexico and north to Chicago. “There’s a big difference when you own your own company. Nobody runs background checks on you so they don’t know. People I work with now still don’t know [I’m transgender]. I would know—they hit on me every day,” Wilder jokes. She considers herself fully integrated as a female but stays active in supporting trans issues. She was a founding member of Transgender Education and Awareness (TEA) of Utah, a group trying to educate the community about transgenderism. “When people think of transsexual, they think ‘Jerry Springer,’ ‘drag queen’; they think ‘perversion’—that’s the stereotype we have to overcome, and that’s why we got dropped out of the federal Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA).” LGB, Hold the T Wilder worries the progress of Johnson’s bill might be a sad re-enactment of what happened nationally in 2007 when protections for transgender people were dropped from the proposed ENDA. “I don’t have any respect for the national [ENDA lobby], but we’ve been told that won’t happen here,” Wilder says, with some skepticism. “Rumors are going to fly that if they [gays, lesbians and bisexuals] don’t have us on, then the bill will pass. I think it will start a conflict with the LGB and the T, because that’s what happened nationally,” Wilder says. “We’ll see what happens when the pressure’s on.”  In many ways, transgender issues are a world apart from those of the queer community. The main objective of many trans individuals, after all, is not to stand apart from the majority maintaining their own cultural identity but to fit in and live average lives as the gender they feel they were meant to have. Todd Hess, a member of the Utah chapter of the Human Rights Committee, a national LGBT advocacy group, has noticed the rift. “I actually had a [gay] friend say to me recently, ‘I don’t get transgender.’ And I kind of looked at him and said, ‘That’s like when a straight person says, “I don’t get gays.”’ I think it turned a light on for him.” Rep. Christine Johnson acknowledges some of these fears may be realized in passing her bill. She won’t rule out the possibility of passing the legislation in parts. “This will take baby steps. And when this all comes together, I think, in the end, everyone will be included. When we can accept sexual orientation, we will be able to accept gender identity. Until then, I think people will have to be patient and realize how arduous a process it is to educate people who have no education on these issues.” TransUtah While supporters are gearing up for a fight, many remain plagued by doubts. Wilder supports Johnson’s legislation as vital to providing sanctuary to a community seemingly lost between laws and societal expectations but doubts it will end discrimination. Wilder at one time worked as a cocktail waitress in a California steakhouse, where solid nondiscrimination laws for transgender people exist. “A co-worker of mine wouldn’t stop telling me that I was going to hell. And so, when I filed a complaint against him and had to admit to my boss I was transgendered, I was fired the next week,” Wilder says. Her boss said the termination was because of anonymous complaints. “This legislation might get passed—probably not in my lifetime. But, even then, Utah is a right-to-work state, which also means ‘right to fire,’” Wilder says. In the transgender community, the struggle for acceptance first comes internally, as members acknowledge and draw out the man or woman hidden beneath the ill-fitting anatomy they were born into. As men and women reborn, their quest for recognition by the law and society may be an operation more dramatic and costly than any surgery imaginable. To rework the taboo and misconceptions of society could mean a cutting away of deeply rooted ignorance, bad jokes and religious hellfire condemnation in trying to piece together a truer community of equals. Daunting as that task may seem, the pain of living a life in flux is one transgender persons understand well enough on a personal level to know change is something worth fighting for in the whole community. “In a fairy-tale way. I keep hoping this [legislation] will get passed this year,” Ariana Losco says, “but I know it will take time. All we can do is to keep coming back every session and try and change every ‘nay’ to a ‘yea.’” Dr. Gender Bender: An interview with pioneering sex-change surgeon Marci Bowers To understand the convictions of some transgendered individuals it’s helpful to know what sex reassignment surgery actually involves. Dr. Marci Bowers, a gynecologist and leading reassignment surgeon in Trinidad, Colo., understands the operation well. Bowers performs up to 150 sex-change surgeries a year. She is renowned as one of the most prolific sex change surgeons, a pioneer in the field not only for her expertise but because she is also a transgendered woman herself. She was born Mark Bowers, in 1961. She is the first transgendered surgeon to perform the procedure.  Bowers’ focus is on male-to-female surgery, and notes that the price tag for the operation depends on where it’s done. “It can vary,” Bowers says. “In the U.S. there are standards of care that have to be followed—not like in Thailand.” Her jab is aimed at the cheaper procedures available in Asia—inviting to often-desperate shoppers of sex reassignment surgery. Bowers estimates a potentially risky operation in Thailand could run as cheaply as $6,000 while a high-end U.S. clinic might charge around $39,000. Bowers’ Colorado clinic splits the difference at about $18,500. Bowers explains the basics of her male-to-female surgery, or, vaginoplasty is about working with what you’ve got. “You need to create homologous female sex organs from male ones. The penis becomes the clitoris, the penile lining becomes the vagina,” she says. This means an actual inversion of the penis must take place to create a vagina, labia, and a new uteral opening. The female to male procedure, or phalloplasty, is more of a challenge. The urethra must be extended. The labia are united to form an empty scrotum, which can be filled with prosthetic testicles. A prosthetic penis can be constructed or one can be created from the tissue of the clitoris. Bowers considers the procedure less successful as vaginoplasty. “They still really haven’t found a good way to make a phallus, they tend to be micropenises, kind of hung like a Chihuahua,” jokes Bowers, adding “but you know the heart comes first in love. Tools and hardware are very secondary.” Many other secondary procedures are involved with both types of sex reassignment. Most male- to- female patients get breast implants, just as female- to- male patients often get mastectomy breast reductions. Bowers herself often performs a number of cosmetic operations such as tracheal shavings, which make Adam’s apples less pronounced. Bowers’ position from both ends of the scalpel has given her a unique perspective, and while not politically active on transgendered issues, she hopes her experience can help her patients. “I empathize with them [my patients], knowing what they’re going through. I really take it personally if they don’t do well.”

2009 Utahns March for gays rights, 'Common Ground' Aside from a few rainbow flags, there was little to distinguish Saturday's gay rights demonstrators from any other group of civic-minded Americans. Kathleen Chaplin drove from Draper to support her friends and neighbors who, the 47-year-old says, are entitled to "the same rights as anyone." Lured from a Capitol Hill apartment, 20-somethings Devin Hirschi and Tiffany Gourley joined the fray. Author:    Kirsten Stewart The Salt Lake Tribune

2010 Few protesters show at Sundance for '8: The Mormon Proposition' movie

By Jennifer Dobner Associated Press Published: Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010  PARK CITY — Despite rumored anti-gay protests, a Sundance Film Festival documentary about the Mormon Church's role in a 2008 California political battle over gay marriage played to a friendly audience on Sunday in Park City. Only about two dozen gay marriage activists chanted — "Separate, church from 8" — in a parking lot outside the premiere of "8: The Mormon Proposition." The film by Reed Cowan, a former Utah Mormon, contends that locally based The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the driving force behind Proposition 8. The ballot initiative reversed an earlier court decision that legalized gay marriage. Before the screening, festival director John Cooper had said he expected a small, but loud, group of "haters," might picket the film, but doubted that Mormon Church members would be among them. "It's not really the Mormon style," said Cooper, who is gay and married his partner of 20 years last year during the window between the court ruling and election day. A Utah-based anti-gay equality group, America Forever, sent out 80,000 faxes on Friday denouncing the movie, its makers and the festival. Internet chatter among other anti-gay groups had also hinted they might come to Sundance, activist Eric Ethington said. "They must be in church today," said Emily Pearson, one of the movie's producers. LDS Church officials have consistently called for a polite, respectful dialogue on the issue. The church has actively fought gay marriage legislation across the United States since the early 1990s. Mormon leaders, however, do not oppose limited rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, as long as those rights don't infringe on religious liberties. In the fall, the church backed a Salt Lake City ordinance that made it illegal to discriminate against LGBT individuals in housing and employment matters. The movie made one movie-goer — Carolyne Simpson of San Diego — want to engage in a productive dialogue. Simpson, who isn't Mormon, said she supports gay marriage. "What I come away with is that it might be interesting to go down and sit at the Mormon church and engage in a dialogue, and say, 'Tell me what you believe and here's what I believe,'" the 65-year-old said. Last year at the urging of church leaders, Mormons donated tens of millions of dollars to the "Yes on 8" campaign and were among the most vigorous volunteers. After the vote, many gay rights advocates turned their anger toward the church. Church officials have not seen the film, spokeswoman Kim Farah said. "Judging from the trailer and background material online, it appears that accuracy and truth are rare commodities in this film," Farah said. "Although we have given many interviews on this topic we had no desire to participate in something so obviously biased." Narrated by Academy Award winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black — also gay and raised Mormon — the film chronicles the campaign and includes personal stories from straight and gay Mormons, including newlyweds Tyler Barrick and Spencer Jones, who married in San Francisco on June 17, 2008, the first day same sex marriage was legal in California. Barrick, a nurse, and Jones, an attorney, are reluctant activists and movie stars. Both were raised Mormon. "The film found us," said Jones. "We're just two gay guys from Utah who were able to get married. Our story is really a lot of people's story." That story includes extended families who are split on the issue of their marriage. Barrick's St. George-based parents, Steve and Linda Stay, have backed the couple and quit the church over the issue. Jones' family remains active in the church and objected to the marriage. In the movie, Jones says his family "refused to find any joy" in his happiness. "I hope they don't see (the film) as an attack on the Mormon Church," said Jones. "It's not about that. The message is mutual respect. We should be just as respected under the laws of California as anyone else." © 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

 2014 LGBT protections State needs anti-discrimination lawThis is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted."In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country. ... I do not know who has told you that we have it."

Legislators in Utah don't quite have their heads in the same sand as the Iranian president when it comes to homosexuality. Most would admit that gays, lesbians and transgender Utahns do exist. But many Republican members of the Legislature ignore reality in another way: They don't admit that LGBT Utahns are the victims of discrimination or that they deserve protection from those who would deny them their rights. Like Ahmadinejad, these legislators, whether they admit it or not, are leaning on their religious convictions as justification for failing to extend government protections to these Utahns in the same way that ethnic and racial minorities, both genders, the elderly and religious groups are protected.That kind of hurtful bias has got to end.For the past two legislative sessions, Republicans have refused to seriously consider statewide laws banning discrimination in housing and employment. Fortunately, 10 city and county councils and several school boards have stepped up to do just that in the absence of a legislative conscience. A Salt Lake Tribune poll shows two-thirds of Utahns support a state-wide anti-discrimination law, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints endorsed the law passed by the Salt Lake City Council in 2009. There is growing evidence that members of the LGBT community are regularly evicted or refused housing and laid off or passed over for promotions on the job. Many more have experienced harassment. The number of such incidents belies legislators' belief that they are rare. But there is no such evidence to back up their supposed concern over "a flood of frivolous claims" once discrimination is outlawed.Research completed by Equality Utah and a University of California Los Angeles think tank shows that 30 percent of 939 lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender Utahns surveyed have experienced harassment consistently during the previous year. Forty-five percent of transgender respondents said they had experienced such treatment.Forty-four percent said they had been fired or denied a job or promotion because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. A shocking 67 percent of transgender Utahns said they also had been made victims. Sen. Ben McAdams, D-Salt Lake City, is sponsoring another bill in the upcoming session to outlaw such discrimination. It should be made law. 

2014 The Utah Pride Center has accepted the resignation of Megan Risbon as Director of Events and Community Engagement; Risbon’s last day of employment will be January 24. Risbon has worked at the Utah Pride Center since September 2011 and has been in her current position since March 2013, previously having been the Executive Assistant and Volunteer Coordinator for the organization. As part of her job duties, Risbon has been the Utah Pride Festival Director having helped plan the Festival in some capacity since 2005.  In 2010, the Utah Pride Festival honored Risbon with the “Megan Risbon Utah Pride Festival Volunteer Award” which annually honors a Festival volunteer for their outstanding commitment, leadership, and service to Utah’s LGBTQ community through dedicated service for the Utah Pride Festival. Risbon will continue to plan and manage 2014 Utah Pride Festival with the help of the Festival Steering Committee.“I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as an employee of the Utah Pride Center these past few years,” said Megan Risbon. “The Center and the LGBTQ community mean so much to me and are an integral part of my life. A new opportunity has presented itself that will help develop my professional skills even more. I am excited for my new endeavors as well as helping the Center with the 2014 Pride Festival.” “We are deeply saddened with the loss of Megan to our team,” stated Steven Ha, Interim Director for the Utah Pride Center. “She has been a remarkable asset not only to the Utah Pride Center but also to the entire LGBTQ community here in Utah. We look forward to having Megan help plan the Pride Festival and wish her success in all her future endeavors.”