David DeMille

ddemille@thespectrum.com

ST. GEORGE – Advocates for more legal protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are looking at St. George as a potential place to make headway, but they are preparing for a lengthy campaign.

After a year of often heated debate over LGBT issues that eventually led to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Utah, attention has turned back to a statewide effort by LGBT people and their supporters to make it illegal to use a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity as means for discrimination in the workplace or in housing.

“It takes a community to get that ball rolling and make it happen,” said Preston Hilburn, a field organizer with Equality Utah, an advocacy group that has been working to forward LGBT causes in the state.

Hilburn and other advocates hosted a town hall meeting in St. George this week to help supporters have more impact convincing lawmakers to support such legislation.

It’s become a sometimes fractured campaign, with some municipalities adopting their own measures, others rejecting the proposals and a statewide measure having run repeatedly but yet to gain support among a majority of legislators.

Opponents have cited a litany of concerns, worrying that such laws would create a separate class of people based on behavior rather than race and that it would force employers and landlords to make choices based on behavior.

Some argue that the measure would create special rights for LGBT people at the expense of employers and property owners, who they feel should be allowed to choose whom to hire and whom to allow to rent.

In 2009, Salt Lake City became the first Utah municipality to adopt such an anti-discrimination ordinance, and similar measures have passed in 17 cities and counties across the state. Springdale became the first in Washington County when it adopted its ordinance in 2012.

A group of supporters have approached the City of St. George about passing such legislation, but Mayor Jon Pike said Thursday that his feeling is that the city will want to take its time. Officials want to hear more from constituents about their thoughts, want to study more how similar measures have impacted other cities and want to wait to see how the Utah Legislature, which begins its annual 45-day general session in January, will approach the issue, Pike said.

“I think the council is looking at a slower approach,” he said. “Everybody is kind of waiting to see where everyone else is going with it.”

Statewide legislation is being pushed again by Sen. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, who spent the past two years trying to get the measure passed after saying he saw and heard examples of discrimination.

The measure cleared a Senate committee in 2013 but was wasn’t discussed during the 2014 session after legislative leaders decided to table all LGBT-related bills because, at the time, the state was appealing a court ruling that allowed same-sex marriage.

That’s no longer an issue this year, Urquhart said, and while there could be an appetite among some lawmakers to strike back after losing on same-sex marriage, he argued that he has never felt the marriage issue ever had anything to do with workplace and housing equality.

“I think it helps pass my bill just for the simple reason that it removes a specious argument – the argument of pass this and you’ll end up with gay marriage,” he said.

Urquhart said he is working to convince fellow lawmakers to support the bill, but that the most powerful arguments will come from constituents with relevant stories explaining the harm caused by discrimination. He said he is confident the bill will pass eventually.

“We know how this issue ends,” he said. “We know there’s going to be full equality under the law. It’s just a question of how long does it take.”

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