Zions decides gala too pro-gay
Bank withdraws after callers say event backs same-sex marriage
The Orem event is to support the HRC, a national gay rights advocacy group that works to advance equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans, at work and in the community, according to its Web site, www.hrc.org.
Zions Bank spokesman Robert Brough said the sponsorship, which he described only as midlevel, was pulled to "avoid any misinterpretation related to the controversy around this issue (same-sex marriage).
"We signed onto this thinking it was a Democratic Party human rights event to promote equality in the work force, particularly single mothers," he said. "When we realized there may be some conflicts here, we withdrew."
Michael Marriott, Utah's representative on the HRC's national board of directors, said the event's sponsors are "certainly not supporting the concept of gay marriage.
"It's in support of the work of the Human Rights Campaign, plain and simple," he said of Utah's first such fund-raiser.
Marriott said the HRC has contributed to efforts to defeat state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, including one Utah voters approved last November.
Marriott said Wednesday he hadn't received any concerned phone calls from Zions or other event sponsors. The HRC's Web site lists such other sponsors as Diamond Rental, Wells Fargo, Ken Garff Mercedes, Club Vortex, the Trapp Door, Marquardt and Fadel, and Cahoots. Marriott declined to give a dollar amount for the Zions Bank sponsorship.
Brough said the sponsorship was requested by philanthropist Bruce Bastian, who is hosting the fund-raiser at his Orem home.
Bastian could not be reached immediately for comment.
Bastian "certainly is someone who's done a whole lot for the community," Brough said. "I don't think he was trying to mislead us at all."
Brough said bank officials apparently assumed the event was tied to the Democratic Party because Tipper Gore is the keynote speaker.
"Without being intimately familiar" with the HRC, Brough said, bank officials agreed about two weeks ago to sponsor the event framed as a fund-raiser for work-force equality.
The event was one of more than 200 the bank supports on an annual basis, he said.
Brough said the decision to pull the bank's sponsorship was made after several Zions Bank officials Wednesday received anonymous phone calls from people saying the event supported gay marriage and that the Deseret Morning News was working on a report that Zions Bank supports gay marriage. The newspaper was not working on such a report.
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