Utah

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Boy Scouts of America have rejected an application for a scouting troop sponsored by a Utah gay rights organization. The Utah Pride Center recently asked permission to start a troop for 10 middle-school aged children with straight troop leaders, said executive director Valerie Larabee... [ Read more → ]

SALT LAKE CITY -- Three couples have filed a lawsuit challenging Utah's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. [ Read more → ]

SALT LAKE CITY -- A survey finds that that 83 percent of Boy Scout leaders, parents and representatives from troops in the greater Salt Lake City area oppose lifting a ban on openly gay scouts and gay and lesbian scout leaders. [ Read more → ]

SALT LAKE CITY -- A bill to create a statewide law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual identity or orientation is dead, the lawmaker behind the measure said Monday. [ Read more → ]

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah Senate committee on Thursday advanced legislation proposing a statewide law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. [ Read more → ]

WEST JORDAN, Utah -- A Utah high school will allow "Singing Valentines" to same-sex students on Thursday after students, faculty and parents complained that a flyer distributed last week singled out LGBT students and was described as anti-gay bullying. [ Read more → ]

SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah Pride Center announced Wednesday that it will file an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the pending cases involving the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California's Proposition 8. Utah Pride said it has retained a bipartisan... [ Read more → ]

TAYLORSVILLE, Utah -- The parents of 14-year-old David Phan, an openly gay student who shot and killed himself in front of horrified classmates at on November 29, are speaking out and accusing school officials of "mishandling" the situation that led to their son's death. [ Read more → ]

DRAPER, Utah -- Some parents in this suburban Salt Lake City community are expressing concern over a recent decision by Draper Elementary to have a local Chick-fil-A franchise sponsor a school spirit night, and provide catering for students celebrating birthdays during the school year. [ Read more → ]

SALT LAKE CITY -- Police and fire investigators In Salt Lake City are actively seeking the identities of three or four people in their late teens or early 20s who launched flaming projectiles at Club JAM, a gay patronized nightclub located north of the Capitol Hill neighborhood in downtown. [ Read more → ]

SALT LAKE CITY -- Peter Cooke, the Democratic candidate for Governor of Utah, is distancing himself from the party’s national platform by declaring his opposition to marriage equality, civil unions and abortion. [ Read more → ]

PROVO, Utah — A poll released Monday by Brigham Young University’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy found that 43 percent of respondents surveyed thought civil unions should be legal, while 28 per cent wanted full marriage equality. [ Read more → ]

SALT LAKE CITY -- While kicking off his campaign in Utah, openly-gay Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger was called “pathetic” and an “idiot” by Nanette Billings, wife of Washington County Republican Party Chairman Willie Billings. [ Read more → ]

SALT LAKE CITY -- More than 300 members of the Mormon Church joined the thousands of participants Sunday at Salt Lake City's gay pride. The group, Mormons Building Bridges, said they wanted to send a message of love to the state’s LGBT community, a message they believe is compatible with their faith, reported the Salt Lake Tribune. [ Read more → ]

OGDEN, Utah -- On Monday, April 23, 18-year-old Alex Smith spoke on a community panel at a screening of a film on bullying, telling the packed room about the bullying his boyfriend, Jack, experienced at school. What no one in the room yet knew, including Alex, was that Jack had already taken his own life. [ Read more → ]

LGBT students and straight allies at Utah's Brigham Young University on Friday released an "It Gets Better" video, adding their voice to the tens of thousands of video messages aimed at preventing depression and suicide among gay youth. [ Read more → ]

SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah's Republican Governor Gary Herbert on Friday vetoed a controversial measure which would have banned the state's public schools from teaching contraception as a way of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. [ Read more → ]

SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah's Republican dominated legislature on Tuesday passed a measure that makes teaching sex education optional for the state's schools, and prohibits any instruction about homosexuality or the use of contraception. [ Read more → ]

A recent poll commissioned by Equality Utah — a Salt Lake-based civil rights organization focusing on equal rights and protections for LGBT Utahns and their families — found that a majority of those polled favored a statewide non-discrimination law that would make it illegal for someone to be fired from a job solely because they are LGBT. [ Read more → ]

LEHI, Utah -- A Utah school district is on the defensive after outing a 14-year middle school student to his parents, claiming administrators were being "proactive" in preventing possible bullying. [ Read more → ]