The Salk Lake City council unanimously approved a non-discrimination ordinance Tuesday night with support from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The ordinance, a first for any Utah community, offers protections for same-sex couples in medical care and hospital visitation, in addition to housing and employment protections, and insurance rights for a partner.
Support from the Mormon Church may have been the decisive factor in the overwhelming support for the non-discrimination ordinance, according to the Associated Press .
“Utah lawmakers tend to quickly fall in line when the influential church makes a rare foray into legislative politics,” the AP reported. “So Tuesday's action could have broad reaching effects in this highly conservative state where more than 80 percent of lawmakers and the governor are church members.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement at Tuesday night’s Salt Lake City council meeting in support of the city’s proposed non-discrimination ordinance.
The Mormon Church donated a fair chunk of the money used to help pass California’s gay marriage ban last November. Despite its support for the ordinance, the church continues to oppose marriage equality.
"We are not anti-gay, we are pro-marriage between a man and a woman. And there's a huge difference between those two points," Elder L. Whitney Clayton, of the Presidency of the Quorum of the Seventy told KSL News.
The church issued a statement saying it "does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights or probate rights."
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