Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 21:57:22 -0500
From: DavidN1327@aol.com

NEWS RELEASE

Monday, February 20, 1995

Contact: Gay and Lesbian Utah Democrats
 Post Office Box 11311
 Salt Lake City, Utah 84147-0311
 (801)238-2526 metropolitan Salt Lake City telephone number
 (800)648-9996 national toll-free telephone number
 Internet: glud@aol.com

Tear sheet requested

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GLUD calls Utah marriage bill "anti-family"

SALT LAKE CITY - Calling it "bad for families" and "bad for business and
tourism," Gay and Lesbian Utah Democrats Founder David Nelson testified
unsuccessfully today against the controversial bill H.B. 366, "Recognition of
Marriages," which is being considered at the Utah Legislature and would ban
the recognition of same-sex marriages which are performed outside the state.

At the bill's first public hearing, 14 members of the state House of
Representatives Energy, Natural Resources and Agriculture Standing Committee
voted unanimously to pass the bill and recommend its passage by the whole
House of Representatives.

Nelson said the bill would be discriminatory and would adversely affect the
state's business and tourism, and its 2002 Winter Olympics bid.

"This bill would be unfair, costly for this state to defend in the likely
event it's legally challenged if it passes, and bad public policy," GLUD
Founder David Nelson said. "The effects of this bill would hurt people and,
as this state's interracial-marriage ban did before 1963, tell the world that
certain relationships - legal marriages - are abhorrent and, therefore, void
in this state for all practical and sometimes vital purposes."

Utah law prohibits same-sex marriages from being performed in the state but
recognizes marriages which are performed in other states and countries.
Same-sex marriages are legal in Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, but
aren't legal in any state of the United States. The Hawaii Supreme Court is
expected to decide this year that same-sex marriages are legal in that state.
Other states may be required to recognize such marriages.