Would S.L. registry erode marriage?

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Feb 12, 2008 | by Deborah Bulkeley Deseret Morning News

Lawmakers are considering whether Salt Lake City's newly approved domestic partner registry is simply a means toward health benefits or part of a national conspiracy to erode the meaning of marriage.

The Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Monday voted 4- 0 to let the full Senate consider the matter.

"My motive is to provide good benefits to the city's employees and to our residents," said Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker of the registry, which recently received unanimous support from the Salt Lake City Council. It gives companies who choose to provide domestic partner benefits an easy way to verify such relationships and provides the right to hospital visitation.

But Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, says he's sponsoring SB267 to overrule Salt Lake City because he sees the registry as "an open checkbook" to future benefits that "mimics Utah's marriage recognition policy to a T."

Whether that registry violates the state's marriage policy was a key point discussed Monday, as lawmakers heard from Salt Lake's attorney that the registry is not even close to "substantially similar to marriage."

However, former state Rep. LaVar Christensen, who sponsored the marriage policy in 2004 with Buttars, said "if they have a broader agenda, they are going too far."

Attorney Frank Mylar said the registry is part of a national ruse by "homosexual groups like the Human Rights Campaign ... to get as many marriage lookalikes" as possible to start creating an equal protection argument.

The question of just what is allowed under the state's marriage policy was also a topic in 2004 before voters approved it in the ballot box. Back then, Monte Stewart, a supporter of the policy, had said that to be in violation a relationship would have to be sexually based and "walk, talk and act like a marriage."

Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake, was at the time head of the campaign against Amendment 3 and had raised concerns that the marriage policy could prevent even basic benefits for same-sex couples.

On Monday, Will Carlson, spokesman for Equality Utah, said, "We were accused of being ridiculous for suggesting that hospital visitation could be prohibited under Amendment 3," which constitutionally banned same-sex marriage in Utah.

Stewart said that "based on what I know, this city ordinance does not violate" that, in large part because it's based on mutual dependence, not a sexual relationship.

However, Christensen said the city registry does potentially violate the policy because "it creates a whole new vocabulary" and recognition.

When questioned by McCoy as to whether a family pass at a city skating rink would violate Amendment 3, Christensen replied simply that SB267 wouldn't deny access to public facilities.

Christensen also alluded to a state law that doesn't allow cohabitating couples to adopt. A House bill to repeal that law, so that unmarried gay and straight couples would be able to adopt and be foster parents, hasn't been allowed to go to hearing yet.

Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, said he had not yet read SB267, and it has not been discussed in the closed GOP caucus. But he said the Senate will consider the question of constitutionality.

Valentine said there may well be problems with the city's proposal "if, in fact, it is encouraging or other recognizing a status that is not recognized in the Constitution, then it would be unconstitutional because of Amendment 3."

The line between what is constitutional and what is not, the Senate leader said, "is if it is doing things that are prohibited by Amendment 3 in terms of recognizing marital rights as between a man and a woman."

He said there may be a way to allow others, such as a parent and a child, to register their relationship with local government.

"They would have to be careful in the drafting," Valentine said, and avoid including same-sex couples "or a polygamous relationship or a bigamist relationship or something else that is otherwise prohibited by law or in the Constitution."

The bill was substituted to keep Salt Lake's existing policy allowing city employees to choose an adult designee for benefits. However, city officials questioned whether the changes were enough.

"It is striking an appropriate balance between health care benefits to adult designees without overlapping, or creating something that could interfere with marriage," Valentine said.

McCoy, who was absent from Monday's vote, said, "I would just ask (senators) to actually judge each piece of legislation on its merits ... rather than engage in this paranoid idea there is some sort of grand conspiracy under foot."

E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com