…Leaders of Equality Utah said statements made by Mormon leaders in defense of their actions in California — that the church was not antigay and had no problem with legal protections for gay men and lesbians already on the books in California — were going to be taken as an endorsement to expand legal rights that gay and lesbian couples have never remotely had in Utah, where the church is based….
State Senator Scott McCoy, an openly gay Democrat who said he would sponsor the legislation with two openly lesbian members of the House of Representatives, said part of the goal was to find a positive outlet for the tensions that arose here as the fight raged over the California measure….
No attempt will be made, he and other Equality Utah members said, to overturn Utah’s constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, passed in 2004. The group will propose, however, striking out language in the amendment that prohibits legal protections for domestic unions.
The proposed laws would also expand protections for same-sex couples in health care and hospitalization decisions, housing and employment and in inheritance issues in probate court.