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Less than a year after a former local Republican candidate — with the help of a law firm founded by an adviser to President Donald Trump — sued LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Utah for sharing his anti-transgender comments with his boss, a judge is throwing the case out under a law protecting free speech. The decision issued late Thursday in Utah’s 3rd District Court ends the case brought by Goud Maragani, who previously ran for Salt Lake County clerk and the Utah Legislature, and blocks him from refiling the suit. Represented by the America First Legal Foundation, Maragani alleged Equality Utah and its executive director, Troy Williams , “knowingly and recklessly portrayed Mr.
Maragani in a false light to his employer through highly offensive statements, which caused such offense that his ...
employer terminated him.” The organization was established by Stephen Miller, Trump’s homeland security adviser and deputy chief of staff, between the president’s administrations. Attorneys for Equality Utah countered the claims, saying the point of the lawsuit was “to punish Equality Utah for calling out Plaintiff’s voluntary and public statements attacking members of Utah’s transgender community and their families.
” They asked that it be dismissed under Utah’s Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, commonly known as UPEPA, passed in 2023. It is considered an anti-SLAPP — or strategic lawsuit against public participation — law, and is meant to stop cases attacking constitutionally protected speech, often used to drain the defendant’s financial resources or intimidate them into silence. Judge Kara Pettit agreed that Maragani’s lawsuit should not move forward, writing, “The Court concludes the content, form and context of Defendants’ communications were related to his and Defendants’ differing public positions on transgender issues and can ‘be fairly considered as relating to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community,’ and thus, were on a matter of public concern.
The Court concludes UPEPA applies.” Neither Maragani nor America First Legal responded to emails requesting comment on the ruling. “Both the rule of law and the First Amendment prevailed today,” Equality Utah wrote in a Friday statement, adding, “Today’s victory is only the latest demonstration that Equality Utah will not be silenced from championing the dignity and legal equality of Utah’s LGBTQ community.
” While a candidate and as the head of the Utah Gay-Straight Coalition, and the now-dissolved Utah chapter of Log Cabin Republicans , Maragani, who is gay, has often made anti-transgender remarks and taken jabs at Equality Utah from the social media accounts of those organizations. Maragani has also spent time at the Capitol pushing for the passage of laws restricting transgender people’s access to gender-affirming health care and bathrooms that align with their gender identity, and in the process has spread misinformation about the transgender community. His claims against Equality Utah centered around the organization’s communications with Lucid Software, a Utah-based company where Maragani previously worked as legal counsel.
Equality Utah reached out with concerns about Maragani’s remarks because it had partnered with the company to provide diversity training, which was conducted, in part, by a transgender member of the nonprofit’s staff. Emails sent before a scheduled training from that employee, Pettit wrote, “were made to protect a legitimate interest of Equality Utah to prevent their transgender employee from harassment while at Lucid in light of the public posts by Plaintiff.” Pettit also concluded that messages sent after the training worked to “advance the common interest held by Defendants and Lucid regarding transgender individuals’ rights, and in particular those associated with Equality Utah, and furthering their corporate partnership.
” As a county clerk candidate, Maragani unsuccessfully sought the LGBTQ+ advocacy group’s support . As a member of the Utah Republican Party’s State Central Committee, he later tried to censure Republican Salt Lake County Council member Aimee Winder Newton for attending an Equality Utah fundraiser and seeking the organization’s endorsement. In a statement posted to its website a week after The Salt Lake Tribune first reported on the case, America First Legal accused Equality Utah of seeking retribution against Maragani for “challenging woke gender ideology“ by working to destroy his career.
“But Mr. Maragani and others like him are no longer alone,” the statement read, “America First Legal will keep fighting to protect decent Americans from woke intimidation.” The firm has in recent weeks sued schools around the country for allowing transgender students to use bathrooms that align with their gender.
Axios reported last month that while Miller works in the White House, America First Legal has externally taken legal action to enforce Trump’s policy priorities. In his official capacity, Miller has also made comments disparaging transgender service members, telling Fox News, “They’re trying to make [Trump] have troops that are men in dresses pretending to be women.”.
