This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Eric Moutsos, the former cop who resigned from the Salt Lake City Police Department after he was suspended for refusing to ride his motorcycle in the Pride Parade last year, has been in the middle of a previous gay-rights controversy.

Moutsos, who has gone to work as a fundraiser and community-outreach organizer for the conservative Sutherland Institute think tank, was the officer who cited two gay men for trespassing on LDS property in 2009.

The misdemeanor charges against Matt Aune and Derek Jones were dropped by then-Salt Lake City prosecutor Sim Gill, who said the men had a reasonable belief they had a right to be on the Main Street Plaza, a former public street purchased by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Gill said signs needed to be more explicit about the private nature of the property. (Such signs now exist.)

Aune and Jones were detained by LDS security officers, who said the two refused their commands to leave the plaza. The two men alleged they were harassed because they were gay and showed affection to each other.

Moutsos was the Salt Lake City police officer who responded. In his police report, he wrote the two men were "kissing and hugging on [LDS] property."

The dispute made national headlines and prompted a "kiss-in" protest that attracted about 100 couples near the plaza, where gay and straight couples affectionately kissed and wore paper hearts.

Moutsos resigned from the police department after he was placed on paid leave for refusing to ride in the parade last June. He cited his religious convictions for his refusal.

His new employer, the Sutherland Institute, has been in the forefront of efforts to ban same-sex marriage and to prop up religious liberties.

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"Hotel California" • I once had the opposite problem on LDS Church property.

When the church built its massive Conference Center on North Temple, my wife, Dawn, and I walked up to the rooftop garden one evening to check out the scenery.

A tour group was there. When we started to descend the exterior stairs, the guide said we couldn't leave. We had to stay with the group. She ignored my explanation that we never were with the tour.

We were standing near the stairs and Dawn said, "Let's make a run for it."

The woman heard her and responded, "There are guards at the bottom. They'll catch you."

So we stayed for the whole tour, and I missed the first half of a World Series game.

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Marriage-protection vet • Utah Valley University President Matthew Holland — a co-signer of the much-ridiculed amicus brief in the same-sex marriage cases before the U.S. Supreme Court that uses strained logic to say gay marriage would lead to 900,000 abortions — is a veteran of the "traditional" marriage cause.

The brief was submitted by attorney Gene Schaerr, who unsuccessfully defended Utah's gay-marriage ban in the federal courts. The brief boasts 100 co-signers, including 13 from Utah.

Tribune editorial writer George Pyle, who mentioned Holland's involvement in his Sunday column, was told in a UVU statement that Holland's personal opinion did not affect the school's official policies, which promote inclusion, diversity and tolerance.

But Holland is an old hand in this battle.

He was an original board member of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which was founded in 2007 and has engaged in campaigns for state laws banning same-sex marriage.

The Southern Poverty Law Center included NOM — whose millions in donations have come from just a few anonymous sources — on its winter 2010 list of "anti-gay groups" that "have continued to pump out demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals."

Holland is no longer a member of NOM's board.

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Don't drink the water • Government officials have warned of possible water rationing this summer due to the lack of winter snowfall.

So when Bountiful resident Darlene Thayne read my column item about the Utah Department of Workforce Services running its sprinklers Monday morning after a weekend of rainstorms, she alerted me to the Bountiful City Cemetery, where the sprinklers were on full force Tuesday morning while the grass was still wet from all that precipitation.

Thayne said such watering is not unusual, even after storms, and she has called Bountiful City Hall and written a letter to the editor about the over-watering — all to no avail.

At least, she told me, the neighbors, in their private homes, have not watered their lawns after it rains. —