Utah State Rep. Christine Johnson, an out lesbian, has announced she will not run for reelection.  Her decision follows the retirement of State Sen. Scott McCoy, who recently left the Utah Senate to focus on his law career.  The Salt Lake Tribune reported:

“I’m not leaving because I’m giving up on the fight in Utah,” the two-term Salt Lake City Democrat said Thursday after announcing she won’t seek re-election. “We have so many budding leaders [in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community] that I’m anxious to see who’s going to step up next.”

“For the past four years, I have stood with my colleagues each morning of the session, placed my hand over my heart and pledged ‘liberty and justice for all,’ ” she said in a statement, “and yet repeatedly witnessed blatant disregard of those so in need of equal protections in the name of ‘family values.’ “

Johnson recently garnered national headlines when she told reporters she was pregnant and would be a surrogate mother for a gay couple.  Her retirement leaves State Rep. Jackie Bispkupski as the sole openly LGBT lawmaker in the state capitol.

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) has introduced a bill to block the District of Columbia from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples until city residents have voted to approve them, according to the Associated Press.

The D.C. City Council passed a marriage equality bill, which was signed by Mayor Adrian Fenty.  It’s due to take effect in March, following a standard period of Congressional review that all locally-passed laws face.  Anti-gay activists have sought to require a vote of D.C. citizens on the issue, but a local commission and the courts have ruled that such a question would violate the city’s laws on the content of ballot initiatives.

A new statewide poll finds Utahns dramatically more open to gay rights measures than they were a year ago, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, with two-thirds of respondents saying they support employment non-discrimination laws for their LGBT fellow citizens.  The findings come on the heels of the Mormon Church’s official support for a Salt Lake City non-discrimination ordinance last fall:

“This isn’t a gradual change of attitudes. This is a fairly dramatic jump,” says Matthew Burbank, chairman of the University of Utah’s political science department. “Clearly, the fact that the LDS Church was officially endorsing this position had an impact on people.”

A similar number of respondents, 66 percent, also say they support expanding Salt Lake City’s anti-discrimination policy — the first of its kind in Utah and already mimicked in Salt Lake County — throughout the state.

Two thirds of respondents also expressed support for some legal protections for same-sex couples, such as hospital visitation and inheritance rights.  Still, 65% opposed amending the state constitution to allow civil unions.

State Rep. Christine Johnson, an out lesbian, recently helped broker a cease fire in the state legislature on LGBT issues.  While she is seeking to expand the Salt Lake City non-discrimination law to cover the entire state, some of her conservative colleagues want to ban even local gay rights laws anywhere in Utah.  Both sides have agreed to study Salt Lake City’s experience for a year before moving ahead with any legislation.

The Log Cabin Republicans are currently working with Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) to draft legislation that would protect LGBT citizens from discrimination in the workplace. KCPW reports on the process and its goals:

The group is drafting two bills for the state legislature to consider, one of which would prohibit job discrimination based on sexual orientation.  Melvin Nimer, president of the Utah Log Cabin Republicans, says GOP lawmakers are lending their support to these bills.

“We’re still in the writing process.  We have three or four Republican legislators who are helping us get them written.  No one has actual signed on because the bills haven’t been done yet, but I suspect the people that help us write us will also end up helping us sponsor it,” he told KCPW.

Utah Log Cabin Republicans President Melvin Nimer makes a unique argument for these protections, citing Utah’s constitutional ban on gay marriage:  “[T]he Utah Legislature did create a special class of people, and all we’re doing is asking that those people that the Utah Legislature singled out have some protections that they might not otherwise have because of that situation with Amendment 3.”

Scott McCoy, Utah’s only openly gay state senator, praised the “open-mindedness and basic sense of fairness toward the gay and lesbian community” of his Republican senate colleague Greg Bell, who has been chosen to become the state’s lieutenant governor by incoming Utah governor Gary Herbert.  The Advocate reports:

Bell, a land-use attorney who lives in Fruit Heights, outside Farmington, supported Amendment 3, the 2004 ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriages and equivalent unions in Utah. However, by the standards of deeply conservative Utah, his support for property contracts for same-sex couples and a domestic-partnership registry in Salt Lake City makes him politically moderate.

In this clip from KSL-TV, openly gay Utah state Sen. Scott McCoy defended his Common Ground Initiative, which aims to extend rights to same-sex couples in Utah without using the word “marriage.” Here, he debates Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the governor of Utah, Jon Huntsman Jr., has publicly stated his support for civil unions between same-sex couples. According to a spokeswoman for the Governor, Huntsman supports many goals of the Common Ground Initiative, a Utah-based gay-rights group aimed at working with the Mormon church to pass legislation for LGBT people.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

It’s doubtful Huntsman’s backing will lead to civil unions getting past the conservative Legislature. And it may not help the rest of this year’s gay-rights legislative push, which already has shrunk from four bills to two.

We appreciate that the governor sees these are common-sense solutions to problems that Utahns are facing,” said Will Carlson, Equality Utah’s public-policy manager. “We’ll take all the help we can get.”

Still, he acknowledged the governor’s support won’t necessarily sway any votes on Capitol Hill. “It sure didn’t help liquor laws or cigarette taxes much,” Carlson noted.

But he said the governor could make the difference on a nonlegislative piece of the Common Ground Initiative: extending state employees’ health benefits to domestic partners.

Roskelley said the governor supports the concept but insisted the change would have to be done legislatively. Carlson said the Legislature’s OK would be needed only if the policy change requires additional appropriations. But he said the cost of expanding health benefits would be “negligible.”

Salt Lake City mayor Ralph Becker joined the members of the Salt Lake City Council to serve as grand marshals of the city’s Utah Pride Parade. The officials were chosen for their support of the city’s new domestic partnership registry.

Other politicians in attendance included Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon as well as representatives from Barack Obama’s campaign.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the parade has grown in size and diversity since its inception.

The parade itself has grown to 65 entries, including an impressive number of corporations not seen in many other parades, including banking giant Wells Fargo and financial services conglomerate American Express.

The festival, put on by the Utah Pride Center, attracted about 150 exhibitors.

“We’ve grown tremendously in just the last couple of years,” said Yana Walton of the Utah Pride Center, which organized both the parade and festival.

The crowds too, have grown both in terms of size and diversity compared with earlier years. In fact, many in the large crowds of people lining 200 East from South Temple to 4th South said while they aren’t gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, they decided to come to the parade and festival to show their enthusiasm for diversity and to enjoy a very atypical Utah celebration. Many brought their children.

“I’m not gay or anything but I wanted to come to support everybody here,” said Lupe Perez of Orem, who attended the parade with friends and family.

Other parade-goers, such as Alex Wells of Sandy, said he has noticed just how diverse the celebration has become in recent years.

“I like the fact that this is a celebration for everyone, not just the gay community,” he said. “It’s come a long way.

After a unanimous approval by the City council in February, Salt Lake City has started registering domestic partners.

Earlier this month, the state’s House of Representatives gave its consent of the ordinance granting the list as long as it was not called a “domestic partner registry.” It is now called a “mutual commitment registry.”

According to 365 Gay, the registry is a campaign promise from Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker.

The registry is open to adult unmarried couples who live together in an interdependent relationship.

They must provide the City Recorder’s Office with three pieces of proof of interdependence. That could be a joint mortgage or lease, joint vehicle ownership, a life insurance policy designating the partner as beneficiary, joint bank account, or power of attorney.

After registering couples will receive a certificate from the city.

Becker’s spokesperson said that the certificate could be used to affirm a relationship to be eligible for domestic partner health insurance at companies that officer such plans.

Registered couples also would have visitation rights at city hospitals when a partner is ill and it would give partners family rights at facilities operated by the city.

Out Utah state Rep. Christine Johnson took legislative debate to a new level recently as lawmakers discussed a law that would ban smoking in a car with a young child.

Johnson produced a pack of cigarettes in front of her colleagues and invited them to sit in her car while she smoked. In the end, no one took Johnson up on her offer.

“If it’s not good enough for us, why is it good enough for Utah’s children?” she asked, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

The bill, sponsored by openly gay state Rep. Scott McCoy, wound up not going up for a vote after opposing legislators used a rare parliamentary maneuver to avoid it.

(Photo: Chris Detrick/The Salt Lake Tribune)