This is big news, given the Mormon Church’s past and continued vigor in working to defeat same-sex marriage. In Salt Lake City, it endorsed a local ordinance banning discrimination against gays in employment and housing.

In its statement backing the ordinance, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said that while it remained “unequivocally committed to defending the bedrock foundation of marriage between a man and a woman,” the question of how people were treated on the job and in finding places to live were matters of fairness that did not have anything to do with marriage.

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“Across America and around the world, diverse communities such as ours are wrestling with complex social and moral questions,” Michael R. Otterson, a church spokesman, said in a statement to the City Council. “The issues before you tonight are the right of people to have a roof over their heads and the right to work without being discriminated against.”

Copy to Sens. Pryor, Lincoln, etc.

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