Now the Tribune is saying, "We told you so" - asserting that its dire predictions are coming to pass. (Our View, "Amendment 3: Now that it matters, officials duck the meaning," April 28) The Tribune is wrong again, as a moment or two of fact-checking and rational reflection demonstrates.

As one supposed proof of its entitlement to crow "We told you so," Thursday's editorial points to the state Senate's decision in early February to vote down Senate Bill 89, a bill to provide a "mutual dependence benefits contract" to a wide variety of unmarried people.

The Tribune would have its readers believe that the negative vote resulted from a belief that Amendment 3 prohibited what SB89 proposed. That is simply false. Legislator after legislator (including Amendment 3's sponsors) said during the debate on SB89 that Amendment 3 allowed the bill; those voting against were doing so on other grounds, which they expressly identified. (Only one legislator hid behind Amendment 3 in voting against SB89.)

The public record on this point is clear, and the Tribune did not live up to its own standards when its editorial distorted that record.

The other supposed proof is something said by Utah State University's general counsel when the Faculty Senate discussed domestic partnership benefits. The best reports make clear that he said he did not know whether such an arrangement was consistent with Amendment 3. In other words, the issue required a careful, written legal opinion.

The editorial, however, distorts that into "The school's own lawyer told them doing so was likely to run afoul of Amendment 3." When USU actually seeks the careful, written legal opinion the matter deserves, that opinion will give the green light. That is because Amendment 3 prohibits only arrangements that walk, talk and act like a marriage, and an insurance benefits program for dependents doesn't (think father and dependent son).

For financial, political or other reasons, some state actors may not want to pursue a particular proposal and may be tempted to hide their real reasons behind a baseless invocation of Amendment 3. And certainly the Tribune should not be missing this simple distinction: Amendment 3 prohibits same-sex marriages and Vermont-like civil unions, while allowing state action with everything else.

But to allow is not to mandate; state actors are going to pick and choose for their own reasons what they will implement and what they will refuse in that broad "allowed" arena. And Amendment 3 is not one of those reasons.

The Tribune's "we told you so" crowing is without basis.

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Monte Stewart is president of Marriage Law Foundation and was one of the leading advocates for passage of Amendment 3.