Many Utahns in survey favor gay rights

Many Utahns favor certain legal rights for same-sex couples, according to a survey conducted by the University of Utah Social Research Institute and the Salt Lake Gay & Lesbian Community Center.

Among the survey's 521 respondents from across the state, nearly half said unmarried couples should be able to form civil unions to protect their legal rights and another 10 percent were undecided.

"This clearly put opposition to civil unions in a minority," wrote Paula Wolfe, director of the Gay & Lesbian Community Center, in her summary of the survey results.

Sixty-nine percent said everyone should be able to visit his or her partner in the hospital and be included in end-of-life decisions. More than half the respondents said gays and lesbians should have employment benefits.

"The biggest surprise in the research was the amount of support for some sort of legal status for domestic partners," Wolfe said.

The survey, titled "Homophobia in Utah: What Are the Realities?" also addressed myths about homosexuality.

"For example, only 20 percent of the respondents thought homosexuals were more likely to molest children. Only 33 percent thought they were promiscuous. This means the majority of Utahns do not believe either myth," Wolfe noted.

In Utah, the number of same-sex partners living together climbed 740 percent in the past decade, according to the 2000 Census. In 1990, the census counted only 401 households headed by same-sex couples; 10 years later that had increased to 3,370, or 0.5 percent of all of the state's households.

Still, knowing the exact size of the gay community in Utah remains difficult. The census did not ask about sexual orientation. Thus, the only gay people who were counted were those living with their partners.

Last week Canada joined Belgium and the Netherlands in allowing homosexual marriages. Yet in Utah, as in the rest of the United States, many still don't want gays to be parents.

In the Utah survey, 61 percent said same-sex couples should not have custody of children, be they adopted or biological.

"Most Utahns want to keep homosexual youth from participating in private organizations, e.g., Boy Scouts," Wolfe added. "Nor do they believe in schools providing gay-straight alliances."

"The majority (of respondents) believe gay people will 'infect' other youth, so they need to be separated," she said.