Gay unions ruled legal

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 4-3 Tuesday that the state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and gave lawmakers 180 days to come up with a solution that would allow gay couples to wed.

The court did not issue marriage licenses to the seven couples who sued and left the details to the Massachusetts Legislature.

Utah legislators will quickly try to blunt any move here to recognize same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts.

State Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, will introduce a bill in the 2004 Legislature that clearly says Utah recognizes a marriage only between one man and one woman.

Massachusetts "can do what it wants. This is the best way for (Utah) to deal with this," Buttars said Tuesday.

He expects his bill to pass "by a large margin."

But a new law won't prevent what Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff anticipates will be "a flood" of lawsuits.

It will be "no time before a (same-sex) couple comes back to Utah" with a Massachusetts marriage license and sues to be recognized here, Shurtleff said.

Rep. Jackie Biskupski, D-Salt Lake, said Buttars is right in believing the Utah Legislature will quickly adopt his bill.

"The bill will pass, I'm sure, unfortunately so," said Biskupski, who is gay. She called Buttars' proposal mean- spirited and unconstitutional.

Biskupski said she's seen a draft bill that has a section that would prohibit lawsuits by gays wishing to clarify their legal standing. "It's ludicrous to try to keep one segment of society out of the (judicial) branch of government.

"Sen. Buttars is using his religious views to run a blatantly unconstitutional bill; it's wrong," she said.

More than 80 percent of the 104 members of the Utah Legislature are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has actively opposed proposed same-sex legislation and citizen initiatives in other states.

No one is expecting religious institutions to accept gay marriages, said Michael Mitchell, executive director of Unity Utah, a gay and lesbian political action committee. "The idea of a religious marriage is not impacted by what we're talking about. We're talking about the civil institution of marriage that is bestowed by the government, a government that gay and lesbian couples pay taxes to."

Biskupski also said Buttars' proposal is unnecessary because Utah already has a law saying two people of the same sex cannot be married.

State law says any union between two people of the same sex is void in Utah, said associate legislative general counsel Esther Chelsea-McCarty, who is drafting Buttars' bill.