Pride Center staff, volunteers celebrate Prop 8 ruling

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Pride Center staff and volunteers were huddled around TV screens and computers when the announcement came that California's Proposition 8 had been overturned.

Valerie Larabee, the executive director for the center, had only one word to describe the reaction: elation.

Employees celebrated the moment and quickly got back to the work at hand.

Larabee believes the ruling will generate "kitchen-table conversation" among Utahns and the dialogue will grow throughout the state.

Staff member Nick Critchlow was one of the group awaiting the news. Critchlow, who has been openly gay for four years, since he was 19 years old, said he vividly remembers being teased while growing up in Cedar City. It was the isolation he felt in high school that made him want to fight for gay rights, among them gay marriage, and he appreciated Wednesday's ruling.

"For myself and the broader LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community, this leaves us feeling very hopeful that changes are being made," Critchlow said.

Volunteer Cesar Zuelli was driving to the center when he heard the news on the radio. "It will impact Utah," he said.

He has friends who were married in California when the law was first passed — friends whose marriages have been discounted by the changing laws. Pride Center employees and volunteers planned to celebrate the court's decision with others at the Utah Capitol on Wednesday night.

e-mail: gbarker@desnews.com