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Despite the support of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and the public, lawmakers have balked at granting cohabiting adults - gay or otherwise - marriagelike rights.

Senate Bill 89 went down to defeat Tuesday with 18 senators opposing it and only 10 in favor.

"It's time to call a spade a spade," said Equality Utah Vice Chairman Scott McCoy. "This is not about their worries about Amendment 3. This is about the fact that they don't want to do anything that would be beneficial for gay people."

SB89 would have established a "mutual dependence benefits contract" form and required the Utah Health Department to keep track of such agreements, including rights of hospital visitation, end-of-life decision-making power and property inheritance rights.

With Huntsman and sponsoring Sen. Greg Bell, a Republican from Fruit Heights, unlikely to push the issue further, Tuesday's action probably dooms the legislation.

Equality Utah released a poll Tuesday showing that 61 percent of Utahns supported the concept of extending some rights to unmarried adults. McCoy e-mailed the Dan Jones & Associates survey to all 29 senators.

A Salt Lake Tribune poll commissioned last month found that 53 percent of Utahns were against guaranteeing cohabiting adults some of the same rights as married people.

Meantime, Bell tried to downplay the gay-rights side effect of his legislation and allay fears that his bill would undermine Utah's new marriage amendment.

"This bill has been characterized as a gay-rights bill. It is not," Bell said. "We are not fighting that [Amendment 3] battle today."

Borrowing the language of Amendment 3, Bell amended his legislation to reinforce the point, adding: "Nothing in this chapter may be construed to give a contract the same or substantially equivalent legal effect as a marriage."

But his efforts were wasted. Most senators shifted from their gay-marriage debate of last week and raised technical questions about Senate Bill 89.

"I did not see anything that was added that people cannot already get," Logan Republican Sen. Lyle Hillyard said. "These rights you're trying to protect are available to people who want to protect them - without the legislation."

But Sen. Bill Hickman, a Republican from St. George, argued Bell's bill would grant unmarried couples rights "substantially equivalent" to marriage, in direct contradiction to Amendment 3.

"The folks I represent passed Amendment 3 overwhelmingly," he said. "I don't want to go back to them and say, 'We agree with that. However, we kind of have to tweak it a little bit in law.' It's part of the constitution of this state. I think it should be left pure."

Earlier, in a lunchtime Senate Republican Caucus, Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, assailed the bill as a Trojan horse for gay rights. "I'm sure gay couples would like to ride the coattails of two widows to advance their cause," said Christensen, one of the original sponsors of Amendment 3.

McCoy said lawmakers' concerns about possible conflicts with Amendment 3 are hypocritical given their assurances during the 2004 campaign that the marriage amendment would not preclude gay couples from seeking other rights through the legislative process. "Either they were lying to us or they were holding their hands behind their backs and crossing their fingers," McCoy said.

Bell was joined by only two other Republicans in voting for the measure: Cottonwood Heights Sen. Carlene Walker and Brigham City Sen. Pete Knudson.

"We're disappointed," Huntsman Legislative Liaison Mike Mower said, shrugging. "This is something that we have been supportive of. Since the first days of Gov. Huntsman's campaign, we felt it was a good opportunity to advance basic rights for all Utahns."

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Tribune reporter Matt Canham contributed to this report.