Panel OK’s Utah’s First Gay Rights Bill

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

The first in a series of gay-rights bills being pushed for the 2009 legislative session cleared a committee Wednesday, but not without drawing staunch opposition from conservative activists.

The pushback over Sen. Scott McCoy’s wrongful-death measure — one of the seemingly least controversial bills proposed as part of Equality Utah’s Common Ground Initiative — could signal a tough slog for the gay-rights group and the legislators carrying the six bills. The initiative also calls for creating a statewide domestic-partner registry and forcing employers with family health plans to extend those benefits to unmarried partners.

McCoy, D-Salt Lake City, wants to amend state law so that financial dependents — besides spouses, parents and children — could sue if a breadwinner suffers a wrongful death.

The measure could be used by same-sex couples and other nontraditional households, such as one in which a grandmother relies on a grandson for financial support. Unlike spouses, parents and children, a wrongful-death designee would have to prove a financially dependent relationship with the victim to go to court.

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