Wednesday, January 28, 2015

I Will Believe It When I See It Passed

Utah says they want to pass a LGBT non-discrimination law,
In major move, Mormon apostles call for statewide LGBT protections
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
January 27, 2015

Top leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called Tuesday for passage of laws granting statewide protections against housing and employment discrimination for gay and lesbian Utahns — as long as those measures safeguard religious freedom.

The move, one LGBT advocates have been pushing for years, provides a major boost for the prospects of nondiscrimination statutes on Utah's Capitol Hill. Such proposals have been bottled up in the Legislature for years — despite the church's historic endorsement of similar protections in Salt Lake City ordinances in 2009.
[…]
"We call on local, state and the federal government," Oaks [an apostle] said in a news release, "to serve all of their people by passing legislation that protects vital religious freedoms for individuals, families, churches and other faith groups while also protecting the rights of our LGBT citizens in such areas as housing, employment and public accommodation in hotels, restaurants and transportation — protections which are not available in many parts of the country."
Okay the article is a little vague on what the bill will cover; the article says “similar protections in Salt Lake City ordinances in 2009” but that law only covers employment and housing, not public accommodation but Oaks seems to include public accommodation. Also in other parts of the article they says LGBT but talk about gay and lesbian protection, so what do they mean? In another Salt Lake Tribune article about the bill they write,
The Utah Legislature is prepared to grapple in coming weeks with competing measures — one that would bar housing and employment discrimination against gay and lesbian Utahns and another that would protect individuals' right to deny services based on their religious beliefs.
While this is a good step in the right direction, I want to know who the bill will actually protect and what will it cover. I fear we will be left out of the bill and that it will have such a large religious exemption that you could drive a truck through.

No comments:

Post a Comment