This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

You can tell it still hurts many Utah politicians that the law of the land now says that same-sex couples have the same rights as opposite-sex couples.

You can tell it hurts them because they still seem to want to hurt back.

Now more than two years removed from Judge Robert Shelby's decision striking down Utah's ban on same-sex marriage — and a year after the state passed a law banning housing and job discrimination for gay Utahns ­— a state representative wants to pass a law that would let judges choose heterosexual couples over same-sex couples in adoption and foster-placement cases. Rep. Kraig Powell's justification for this is his belief that having both a male and female role model is better for children.

Stop. Just stop this. For the umpteenth time, there is no evidence that this is true. More importantly, we don't look to statistics to decide people's civil rights. Gay couples and straight couples are equal in the eyes of the law, and it genuinely harms people to create two tiers.

We do have a problem in Utah, one with actual evidence. What Powell and the rest of the Legislature should do is make it clear that judges can't discriminate against gay couples, not that they can.

The state faced a doozy of a case last November when Seventh District Juvenile Court Judge Scott Johansen in Price ordered that an infant be removed from her foster parents' home. The judge's reason? Because it's "not in the best interest of children to be raised by same-sex couples."

It became national news, and it triggered a formal complaint about the judge to the Judicial Conduct Commission. In short order, the judge changed his order and removed himself from the case and then quietly retired less than two months later.

Is this how it's going to go? Are we going to be like Alabama, where the head of the Supreme Court is still telling judges not to issue same-sex marriage licenses. Or Oklahoma, where a legislator has filed a bill to make it legal to use aversion therapy, including electroshock, to try and change people's sexual identity?

Let's get off the backwater circuit and start living in the 21st century. Every time a legislator dreams up another way to differentiate same-sex and opposite-sex couples, he or she should stop and remember: You don't get your civil rights for being straight. You get them for being human.