Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, proposed a bill that would allow two adults “who are not eligible to be married under the laws of Utah” to enter into contracts that would give them limited mutual rights and responsibilities concerning health care and property. The Senate defeated the bill the other day, 18-10, on the theory that the contracts would amount to gay marriage by another name.

This was wrong for two reasons. First, as quoted above, the bill specifically stated that only two adults who could not marry under the law were eligible for the contracts. Second, the bill was carefully written to say that these contracts would not be marriages and were not to be treated as if they were.

In short, no one was proposing gay marriage. But the Senate is so blinded by its antipathy toward the idea of gay marriage that it cannot bring itself to make it easier for same-sex couples to exercise certain mutual contract rights, such as the ability to visit a loved one in the hospital or share property in joint tenancy.

This treatment of gays and lesbians is wrong because it sends the message that they are less entitled to certain basic rights than other people.

We, like most other Utahns, do not support gay marriage. But we do believe that gay couples should have certain basic rights that married couples enjoy, among them the rights that Senate Bill 89 would have afforded.

Utahns voted overwhelmingly last November to amend their constitution to protect the institution of marriage. The new amendment, which appeared on the ballot as Amendment 3, says that marriage consists only of the legal union between a man and a woman. The second part of the amendment says that no other domestic union, no matter what you call it, may be recognized as a marriage or given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect.

We worried at the time of the election that the second part of that amendment would create barriers to affording gay couples basic rights. As a matter of law, that issue has not been decided by the courts. But as a political reality, it is clear from the Senate's vote on SB89 that our concern has been realized.

A simple contract that allows one person to make health-care decisions for an incapacitated adult, as an immediate family member could, is not a “domestic union.” Neither is a contract that would allow two unmarried people to own property in joint tenancy. Making it easier for people to enter those contracts, and register them with the Health Department, is a simple courtesy, not a marriage.

It's too bad that 18 Utah senators can't, or won't, see that.