Equality Utah's Common Ground Initiative has been grounded. The package of gay-rights legislation simply isn't going to fly. Unwarranted paranoia about protecting the sanctity of traditional male-female marriage, or perhaps something deeper and darker, will keep the Utah Legislature from granting gay and transgender persons and same-sex couples what amount to basic human rights.

The Senate's Judiciary Committee shot down the most benign of the four bills on Tuesday, one that applied to all non-traditional families. Senate Bill 32, sponsored by Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake City, would have extended the right to sue to financially dependent members of non-nuclear families -- same-sex partners, grandmother-grandson, etc. -- in the event of a wrongful death.

And the defeat of the measure by a 4-2 vote -- Democrats for and Republicans against -- doesn't bode well for the remaining bills, which would establish a statewide domestic partner registry, protect gay and transgendered persons from being fired or evicted due to their sexual orientation, and give the electorate the opportunity to amend the state Constitution to allow for all of the above.

There had been reason for optimism in the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender community. The LDS Church had signaled that it was not opposed to extending some basic legal protections to same-sex partners. The Common Ground Coalition, a consortium of 30 organizations, threw its weight behind the initiative. A Senate interim committee gave McCoy's probate bill its blessing last November. And conservative Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, invited a pair of gay-rights activists into his home for a friendly chat when they showed up on his doorstep with a complimentary loaf of pumpkin bread this month.

It turned out to be a waste of perfectly good bread. Conservative activists carried the day before Buttars' Judiciary Committee, arguing that the probate bill would chip away at the legal framework that upholds the traditional family and male-female marriage. They compared the Common Ground bills to a "slippery slope" that could lead to court rulings legalizing same-sex marriage.

It's not an apt comparison. That alleged "slippery slope" is protected by an impenetrable guard rail -- Amendment 3 of the Utah Constitution, which defines marriage as solely between a man and a woman. What Common Ground supporters seek are basic legal rights and protections, not marriage licenses. Lawmakers should set their paranoia aside, and listen to common sense instead of the radical right.