Next step: Will be reworked and studied for a year.

A proposal meant to clarify the role religion can play in society and to provide some legal protection for smaller governments won't become law.

Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, who sponsored the bill, pulled it back on Wednesday.

"I'm sick about it," he said. "But I'm absolutely confident that we will be back next year."

Buttars feels amendments lowering the legal standard he sought for religious lawsuits weakened the bill, while administrators from the University of Utah feared the proposal would expose them to legal challenges by extreme religious groups.

"There has got to be a balance," Buttars said.

He believes governments, afraid of lawsuits, have unnecessarily and illegally restricted religious expression. Buttars has often mentioned students sent home for wearing clothing displaying religious messages or caroling groups told they can not sing on city hall steps.

"Slowly the noose has become tighter and tighter," Buttars told a House committee.

And while Buttars seeks to allow such things, he doesn't want to open the door to female genital mutilation or any other religious practice he considers extreme.

One of the main proponents of the bill is Gayle Ruzicka, leader of the Utah Eagle Forum, a conservative morals group that fights for such things as school prayer.

She agrees that the bill needs further study before going forward. She worries that dropping the legal standard for religious suits would also lower the bar in other areas of the law, such as a foster parents' right to choose the religion of children in their care.