Lesbian legislator pregnant for gay couple

SALT LAKE CITY, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- A 41-year-old lesbian Utah legislator is pregnant with a baby she says she is carrying for two gay men, the intended parents.

Rep. Christine Johnson, D-Salt Lake, who has a 17-year-old daughter of her own with an ex-husband, is 16 weeks pregnant after have been inseminated with the sperm from one of the men, the Salt Lake Tribune reported Friday.

"I can very much empathize with their desire to become parents and share their lives with and open their hearts to a child. I'm immeasurably grateful to be a mother," Johnson said.

Johnson offered to be a surrogate at no cost to save the men the high price of hiring one -–up to as much as $100,000. The men are paying for the medical costs, she said.

"To watch them get emotional when we look at the ultrasound and we see their baby, it is so gratifying for me to know I'm helping them become a family," said Johnson. "They are, in concert, just going to be perfect parents."

In 2000, the Utah Legislature passed a law making it illegal for unmarried couples to be adoptive or foster parents -- a measure which many believe was enacted to prevent same-sex couples from being adoptive parents.

Johson's colleague, Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck, D-Salt Lake, a mother of two, said she is trying to get through a bill that would amend Utah adoption law allowing second-parent adoptions, in which a child's biological parent designates an unmarried partner to be the second, adoptive parent.

Johnson, in turn, has promised to sponsor a bill, akin to recent ordinances in Salt Lake City, that would ban housing and employment discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.