Gov. Spencer Cox has proclaimed June to be Pride Month in Utah. His official declaration was the first from a Utah governor, and it would have been inconceivable even a decade ago. For this we say to our fellow Utahns, simply, but from the heart, thank you.
For years the LGBT community and its allies have highlighted the values of human dignity, legal equality and the arc of justice shaped by love. There has been healing and progress, and it deserves acknowledgement and sincere expressions of gratitude to elected officials, to religious leaders and local church volunteers, to communities and neighbors and to the countless anonymous individuals who paused their own journey to help fellow travelers. Thank you for the efforts — because conversation, understanding and change take undeniable effort.
LGBT Utahns no longer need to hide their lives in the closet, in the shadows or as strangers to the law. They are an integral and celebrated part of our vibrant and growing state.
So in 2021, Pride Month arrives in Utah with ample cause to salute our state’s continued progress toward being a more perfect union. After a year that will likely be remembered for a global pandemic and an insurrection against our Constitution, in contrast Utah’s LGBT community has seen how our democracy and government can help cure social ills and aspire to reflect the better angels of our collective nature.
As recently as a decade ago, it was the LGBT community that possessed genuine grievances. America was in breach of the promises and constitutional protections owed to its LGBT citizens. Both Utah and our federal government were operating systems of discrimination that haunted and harmed LGBT people from cradle to grave.
Yet the LGBT community responded to harm and injustice not with insurrection but with dialogue and a civil rights movement. The community response that followed — including the triumphs, compromises, and countless individual stories that punctuate the humanity of this movement — have been quintessentially American.
Utah’s executive branch has set the tone, transitioning over the last decade from fighting against marriage equality to creating an inclusive Utah. Before retiring, Gov. Gary Herbert wisely handed to professionals the task of regulating conversion therapy programs, and the result — consistent with the prevailing scientific consensus — was an administrative ban on the practice that took effect in January 2019.
New Gov. Spencer Cox has picked up the baton for the Utah Way. Within a month of taking office, Cox stated his opposition to legislation seeking to exclude trans students from scholastic athletics. With Cox’s blessing, the Utah Legislature killed at least two bills championed by out-of-state extremists that targeted our state’s trans citizens.
Better still, the Legislature has in recent years passed carefully crafted bills protecting LGBT Utahns from employment and housing discrimination, hate crimes and an unconstitutional curriculum mandate for the public schools.
Justice for trans Utahns has also emerged from our state’s judicial branch. In May, the Utah Supreme Court issued a powerful decision affirming that trans Utahns have the right to have their government records reflect their authentic lives. This legal victory on behalf of courageous plaintiffs Angie Rice and Sean Childers-Gray culminated a prolonged legal saga. Salt Lake City Councilman Christopher Wharton, whose law firm practices on the front lines for LGBTQ families in Utah, is being honored as this year’s recipient of the Kristen Ries Award for his work on this and other cases.
Utah’s progress over the last decade was made possible by the many Utahns of goodwill whose hearts and minds were open to change about their fellow citizens. The blessing and power of human interactions “one person at a time” or “one relationship at a time” are impossible to overstate. The decency of Utahns is prevailing against continued resistance and misunderstanding.
Remarkably, a national poll last summer ranked Utah second in the country for supporting laws protecting the LGBTQ community. Utah is now striving to live up to the spirit of its roots, issuing invitations for all citizens to live in places of safety and refuge from prior storms of engrained intolerance.
As befits a governor, Cox has been an exemplar of this evolution. In 2015, his faith led him to apologize to Utah’s LGBT community for past transgressions.
“My heart has changed,” Cox proclaimed.
Utah remains an imperfect and often challenging place for the LGBT community but it is getting better. As the governor’s recent proclamation explains, “we must cultivate a climate of inclusion and unconditional love for all.”
That captures the essence of Pride, which celebrates not just the LGBT community but everyone who is helping to make Utah a better place.
Paul C. Burke
John W. Mackay
Attorneys Paul C. Burke and John W. Mackay have represented Equality Utah and Utah Pride.