Subject: GLUD starts "Olympics Out of Utah" project
From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 1995 20:51:44 -0500

NEWS RELEASE

Thursday, March 2, 1995

Contact: Gay and Lesbian Utah Democrats
 Post Office Box 11311
 Salt Lake City, Utah 84147-0311
 (801)238-2526 metropolitan Salt Lake City telephone number
 (800)648-9996 national toll-free telephone number
 Internet: [email-masked]

Tear sheet requested

a000
rp
^BC-Gay,293<

GLUD starts "Olympics Out of Utah" project

SALT LAKE CITY - Gay and Lesbian Utah Democrats leaders announced today their
creation of an "Olympics Out of Utah" project which will encourage the
International Olympic Committee to choose a 2002 Winter Olympics host other
than Utah which is one of four competing international locations. The project
is the group's response to the passage of the state's House Bill 366,
"Recognition of Marriages," which would ban recognition of same-sex marriages
which are performed outside the state.

"The International Olympic Committee and would-be Olympics participants must
be warned that this state is unprepared to offer equal protection of legally
married same-sex couples including those who would choose to attend the
Games," GLUD Founder David Nelson said. "The Olympics deserve to be hosted by
a venue which recognizes and protects the diversity of the world's athletes
and citizens. The passage of this bill is stark proof that this state is
unprepared to do that."

Nelson pointed to the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics where the adoption last
year by Cobb County, Ga., commissioners of a controversial homophobic
resolution prompted Olympics organizers to move the volleyball competition
from that county in response to a similar request from gay and lesbian
Georgians.

GLUD leaders also asked Utah Gov. Michael O. Leavitt to veto the bill, and
state Attorney General Jan Graham to review the constitutionality of the bill
because it was passed one minute after the midnight legislative deadline.

The state has two laws which govern the performance and recognition of
marriages. Same-sex marriages are prohibited from being performed, but
marriages which are performed in other countries, state and territories are
valid in the state if the marriages are valid where they're performed. No
state of the United States performs same-sex marriages, but Hawaii may soon
become the first.