Utah's first — and only — openly gay lawmaker is leaving

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Rep. Jackie Biskupski, a Salt Lake City Democrat, is resigning her post to move to a home outside of House District 30. In 1998, she became the first openly gay person to be elected to the Utah Legislature. Later she was joined by out lawmakers Sen. Scott McCoy and Rep. Christine Johnson, but they have both since left political office. With Biskupski departing, Utah will no longer have a LGBT state lawmaker on Capitol Hill.

Biskupski frequently asked her conservative colleagues in the Republican-dominated legislature to support equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Utahns. But during her tenure, she saw the passage of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and a law that forbids same-sex couples from adopting or fostering children.

Before the latter law passed in 2000, she made an impassioned speech in the Utah House. According to Salt Lake Tribune archives, she told them, "The stereotypes that people use to justify their hatred for me are not me. I am not all those negative things you have been taught to believe about me. I am not less human and therefore do not deserve to have my liberties taken away from me."