The latest twist in "normalizing" Utah's liquor laws is enough to give drinking, polygamy and homosexuality bad names.

Neighbors in Salt Lake City's Marmalade District are embroiled in a battle over whether a neighborhood bar should sell hard liquor. If the news stories are to be believed, gays are on one side of the issue and polygamists on the other — making it a battle between good and evil in twisted biblical way—that over-simplifies the issue.

The beer bar, Jam in the Marmalade on Third West, is in the city's so-called gayborhood. A better name for the community might be the diverse-a-hood or "Little U.N." or, as some call it, the "Refinery Historic District."

I live there. My street, for instance, has Sudanese, Czechs, trailer-trash journalists, Mormons, some rowdy Belgians, truckers, and, yes, a few gays and an undetermined number of polygamist families. We actually get along pretty well, except on one issue: whether Jam should get a full liquor license.

The owners of Jam, apparently gambling on the redevelopment of Third West, poured money into rehabing the ancient working-class tavern once known as Cedar Lounge. To survive, Rob McCarthy needs a full liquor license. Some neighbors, including the polygamists, think that serving cocktails would put their children in peril. (The State of Texas would argue that polygamy puts the kids in even more danger, but whatever.)

Many residents signed a petition welcoming Jam to the neighborhood. We want to be able to walk to a neighborhood bar, even if it has a spinning mirrored ball and techno music.

It's worth noting that I doubt anyone in our live-and-let live neighborhood has ever passed around a petition denouncing polygamy.