WASHINGTON, DC, March 13, 2015 — Utah Governor Gary Herbert has signed into law SB 296. In response, the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund released the following statement:
“Equality Utah has worked extremely hard to build bridges with the leaders of the Church of Latter-day Saints to expand Utah’s existing non-discrimination protections in employment and housing to LGBTQ people, when issues of religious freedom and religious refusals are at a complex moment in our movement. The new law reinforces the principle that state LGBTQ non-discrimination laws should provide the same level of protections as those provided for all other protected groups in that state. This principle is also true of any acceptable federal non-discrimination legislation—that it must provide the same protections for LGBTQ people that exist for other groups in current civil rights laws. In fact, our vision is a country in which all people, including LGBTQ people and their families, enjoy the same non-discrimination protections as other protected groups in federal laws such as Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act while preserving our Constitutionally protected religious freedoms,” Rea Carey, National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund Executive Director.
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CONTACT:
Jorge Amaro
Media and Public Relations Director
213-842-7564
jamaro@thetaskforce.org