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Opinion 
Public Enemy Number One
When LaVar Christensen and fellow lawmakers wrote Amendment 3, by his own words to KSL, they “made sure it carefully and adequately reinforces marriage and doesn’t deny rights to others, as is falsely alleged.” (Aug 27, 2004)
Now, it seems Christensen is concerned the law may not be clear enough for Utah. Despite what supporters of the amendment once said, it’s very clear they now meant to say “gay people may not have access to any rights whatsoever usually granted to family or marriage.”
In two weeks, Christensen—who represents the Draper/Sandy area in the state’s House of Representatives—has threatened new legislation twice because he doesn’t like how other branches of government are interpreting Utah’s policy on queer issues.
First, Christensen threatened to sponsor state legislation to prevent Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson from extending health and medical insurance to the partners of gay and lesbian couples and creating a domestic partner registry. Such steps, Christensen believes, are the same thing as San Fransisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsome marrying gay couples. Christensen also believes that offering medical benefits to domestic partners would violate the second part of the amendment, which outlaws anything that is “the same or substantially equivalent” to marriage.
Second, Christensen has threatened legislation if the Supreme Court rules that the non-biological mother of a child has visitation privileges with her ex-partner’s baby. If he has his way, the state legislature will consider a bill in the next session to prevent courts from ordering visitation or custody for any parent who doesn’t have a marital, adoptive or biological relationship with the child in question. Since Utah law already prevents same-gender couples from jointly adopting children, this would effectively destroy any chances for both members of gay and lesbian couples to have a legal relationship with their children.
If that’s not enough, LaVar Christensen is one of the original sponsors of Amendment 3, has consistently fought against hate crime legislation, and is among Utah’s most outspoken anti-gay voices.
Simply put, LaVar Christensen has got to go. He’s up for reelection in 13 months (November 2006) and QSaltLake believes that if the queer community can only organize against one political opponent between now and then, Christensen should be that one.
His views are out of step with the majority of Utah citizens and he is an extremist of frightening levels. Polls have consistently shown over 60 percent of Utahns support hate crime legislation. Despite being opposed to gay marriage, Utahns are slowly beginning to favor an increasing number of rights for gay and lesbian couples—including health insurance, medical decisions, parenting and inheritance. Christensen will have none of that. As far as he’s concerned, there’s no reason he can’t use the law to bully people into following his moral and religious beliefs.
Christensen was first narrowly elected (33 votes) by defeating moderate Democratic incumbent Trisha Beck. Although Christensen claims innocence, some feel that Beck’s loss can be attributed to negative attack mailers alleging that Beck was a lesbian in the last days of the election.
Whether he’s replaced by a more moderate Republican or a Democrat, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that is certain is that the queer community of Utah needs to help put an end to LaVar Christensen’s political career.
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