Jim Dabakis
| Jim Dabakis | |
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| Member of the Utah Senate from the 2nd district |
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Assumed office December 2012 |
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| Preceded by | Ben McAdams |
| Chairman of the Utah Democratic Party |
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In office July 2011 – March 2014 |
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| Preceded by | Wayne Holland |
| Succeeded by | Peter Corroon |
| Personal details | |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Stephen Justeson |
Jim Dabakis is an American politician from Salt Lake City, Utah. A Democrat, he is a member of the Utah State Senate, where he represents the state's 2nd senate district.
Born into a Greek-American family from Springfield, Massachusetts, Dabakis is the son of a machinist. Raised Greek Orthodox, he was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at age 11. In 1971, he enrolled at Brigham Young University and sought guidance from Mark E. Petersen, one of the Church's apostles, about his homosexuality. He was sent to the San Francisco bay area as a missionary.
Dabakis dropped out of BYU, and later became a talk-radio and TV host in Salt Lake City. He also organized tours of the Eastern Bloc. In 1991, he moved to Saint Petersburg, Russia, where he taught business at a Russian university, developed an art business and provided micro-loans to a variety of emerging Russian entrepreneurs. He split his time between Salt Lake City and St. Petersburg over the next twenty years. His official web page lists his profession as art dealer. He is also the host of a local TV show in Salt Lake City called UP with Jim Dabakis. [1]
One of the co-founders of Equality Utah and the Utah Pride Center, Dabakis is openly gay. On June 26, 2013, he proposed marriage to Stephen Justeson. The two were legally wed by Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker at the Salt Lake County Clerk's Office on December 20, 2013, just hours after a federal judge ruled the state's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.
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