In response to Salt Lake City's new domestic partner registry, a Senate committee approved a bill Monday prohibiting cities and counties from recognizing any domestic relationship outside of marriage.

Last week, the Salt Lake City Council voted unanimously to create a domestic partner registry affirming the right of same-sex and other couples outside the traditional realm of marriage to receive health insurance benefits.

Senate Bill 267, sponsored by Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, would invalidate that registry and any others that might come before cities and counties in Utah.

Buttars said the registry violates the Utah Constitution, which voters amended in 2004 to outlaw gay marriage and prohibit legal unions that are "substantially equivalent" to traditional marriage between a man and a woman.

"This is an attempt to compromise marriage one small slice at a time," Buttars said. "We now have a registry that is in violation of the very code it claims to be empowered by."

He said gay couples and others already can receive insurance benefits through the city's adult designee program, which is available to all city employees and therefore doesn't create the problem of carving out a protected class of citizens.

But critics of Buttars's proposal say it could endanger the designee program as well as the registry, and doesn't provide a mechanism for private-sector employers to determine eligibility for employee benefits.

"Though the registry, we will get far more people covered by insurance," Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker said. "This bill would leave a lot of employees and their partners in desperate circumstances."

Edwin Rutan, city attorney for Salt Lake City, said the registry violates neither Amendment 3 nor the Utah Defense of Marriage Act.

Nothing in the ordinance creating the registry deals with divorce, property rights, tax filing, or any other issue relating to marriage and state law, Rutan said.

SB 267 contains language that could be interpreted as restricting who could be designated for benefits under the existing adult designee program, he said.

Frank Myler, a Salt Lake City attorney who has been involved in previous domestic partner cases, said the registry will cost thousands of dollars in litigation if allowed to proceed.

"This isn't about benefits," Myler said. "Homosexual groups are targeting large cities because that's where they can get a foot in the door and begin to crack the foundation of marriage."

Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, voted in favor of Buttars's bill.

"This issue, in my mind, of forwarding the homosexual agenda, goes against my party's beliefs and my personal beliefs," Christensen said.

SB 267 is now headed to the Senate floor for further debate.

Senate Bill 267 Local Government Authority Amendments

Sponsor: by Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan

This bill would modify provisions relating to the authority of a county or municipal legislative body.