After realizing that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was blocking email letters urging them to be true to their word in supporting non-marriage legal protections to same-sex relationships, the Human Rights Campaign delivered more than 27,000 letters urging the church to publicly back Equality Utah’s “Common Ground Initiative.”

HRC had previously sent an action alert to its members and supporters asking them to send letters to leaders of the LDS Church to urge them to support civil unions and other pro-equality legislation in the state; however, many of these letters were blocked from being delivered. The letters were then delivered by hand on Dec. 22. Following the original launch of this national action alert, the Associated Press wrote an article detailing the campaign’s launch. The Mormon Church denied repeated requests for comment for the story. 

Equality Utah, the state’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocacy group, developed the “Common Ground Initiative” to find acceptable solutions to solve the many problems LGBT people in Utah face every day.

The initiative includes legislation that would allow domestic partners of public employees to receive insurance and retirement benefits; add sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s anti-discrimination laws; allow domestic partners and children of domestic partners to be designated as heirs in wrongful death settlements; create a domestic partner registry and provide definitions of domestic partnership rights and responsibilities; and allow same-sex domestic partners to provide permanent, safe, loving homes to adopted children.