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This weekend's 41st annual Utah Pride Festival will be like none before. Utah's LGBT community will celebrate a new era of legal equality, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last June confirming that gay people share the fundamental right to marry. The Supreme Court ratified the invalidation of Utah's Amendment 3 and effectively ended the state's ban on adoption by gay couples.

LGBT Utahns had long suffered as second-class citizens. The state of Utah had constructed a comprehensive system of laws that discriminated against LGBT Utahns during every stage of life. From the moment a child had an inkling of being gay, throughout adolescence and adulthood, and all the way to the grave, LGBT Utahns were haunted by state laws that denied their existence, demeaned them as lesser human beings and denigrated their lives and family relationships.

The Supreme Court's decision established that LGBT Utahns are entitled to equal dignity in the eyes of the law. Yet vestiges of Utah's system of discrimination still remain and the need for legal vigilance persists.

Most notably, Utah maintains a broad prohibition on the "advocacy of homosexuality" in its public school curriculum. Utah's curriculum ban conveys the unconstitutional message that gay people are somehow inferior. This statute demeans married gay couples whose children attend public schools. The ban also creates a chill on the ability of professional educators to assure their students, especially those coming to terms with their sexual identity, that homosexuality is a normal and healthy variation of human sexuality.

Another vestigial law targets LGBT teenagers and aims to deprive them of social support as they are coming out and navigating adolescence. A Utah statute regulates the formation and operation of gay-straight alliances at public high schools. It imposes onerous burdens that make it more difficult to start a gay-straight alliance than to register a business corporation. The same statute forces public school students to obtain parental consent before joining a gay-straight alliance, thus deterring closeted teens from joining a potentially lifesaving support group at school before coming out to their parents at home.

The eventual demise of these laws is preordained by the Supreme Court's findings that prejudice against LGBT people is irrational. Laws targeting LGBT people — or any group or segment of our society — run contrary to the best nature of Utahns and only serve to harm us all.

The advent of marriage equality has not harkened the collapse of society, as some opponents had prophesied, but the Supreme Court's decision did provoke some backlash within Utah's borders. The state's predominant religion responded to the ruling by barring from its membership not only married gay couples but also their children.

Resistance from Temple Square presaged antics on Capitol Hill. One legislator introduced a bill titled "Sovereign Marriage Authority" imploring the state to largely ignore the Supreme Court's decision. A cadre of lawyer-legislators contended that LGBT Utahns were still not entitled to equal marital rights to adopt and foster children, despite the Supreme Court's express mandate that the Constitution "does not permit the State to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex."

A juvenile court judge in Carbon County ordered the removal of an infant from her foster parents solely because of the judge's unfounded belief that same-sex couples might be inferior parents. The order was rescinded after provoking a national outcry, and the judge quietly retired with a complaint pending before the Utah Judicial Conduct Commission.

Most recently, Utah joined a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's position that transgender persons are legally entitled to use public restrooms consistent with their gender identity. Crusaders for restrictive labels on bathrooms do not have a noble track record in our nation's history. Utah's new litigation position also appears at odds with state law, which requires employers to "afford reasonable accommodations based on gender identity to all employees."

Collectively these reactionary missteps and errors of judgment may be frustrating, but they will likely prove fleeting. What promises to be enduring — and what will be celebrated during the Pride Festival — is our nation's embrace of the LGBT community as full citizens under our Constitution.

Paul C. Burke received the "Utah Hero" Award at the 2015 Utah Pride Festival. Brett L. Tolman served as U.S. Attorney for Utah from 2006 to 2009.