FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thurs., May 29, 2008
CONTACT: Gary Glenn 989-835-7978

Family group urges Ferndale police to enforce public
nudity, indecency laws at homosexual “pride” festival

Ferndale “transgender” activist: “I’ve been approached many
times by people concerned about public nudity at PrideFest.”

Ferndale businesswoman: young children were exposed to
“shocking” nudity, “lewd behavior” at last year’s Pride event

FERNDALE, Mich. — A statewide family values organization is urging Ferndale police to assure the public it will effectively enforce state laws prohibiting public nudity and indecency during Motor City Pride, a homosexual street festival scheduled in the city this Sunday, citing concerns about such behavior at the event in past years published in a Ferndale “transgender” activist’s daily e-mail newsletter.

The American Family Association of Michigan Thursday alerted Ferndale Police Chief Michael P. Kitchen to comments published in “Ferndale Friends,” a daily e-newsletter issued by Stephanie Loveless, a 47 year old Ferndale man formerly named Thomas Ness, a Green Party candidate for Congress in 2000, who now dresses as a woman.
http://www.transgenderdetroit.org/?page_id=6

“On behalf of children whose parents may exercise the poor judgment of taking them to such an event,” AFA-Michigan President Gary Glenn wrote, “we urge you to alert police officers responsible for policing the event to these locally published accounts of public nudity and indecency at past Motor City Pride festivals, remind them of state laws strictly prohibiting such activity in public, and instruct them to faithfully and fully enforce state laws regarding public nudity and indecency and child sexually abusive activity.”

Glenn cited accounts published by Loveless in his May 8th newsletter, in which Loveless wrote that he had “been approached many times by people concerned about public nudity at PrideFest.”

“Most recently, members of the (gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender community talked to me about it,” Loveless wrote. “As gays and lesbians, they are certainly very much in favor of Pride-Fest, but they’re not happy about seeing exposed buttocks, etc. I agree completely. I’m not exactly a prude, by any means, but I feel our downtown district must always be kept family-friendly… What do you think? …Have you also been offended by public nudity at Pride-Fest?”

The next day, Loveless published several responses, including comments by Ferndale insurance agent Robin J. Wojta, who said she and her young children were exposed to public nudity and indecency during last year’s event.”

“I am not a prude in any way…but I have to say, that some of the ’stuff’ I saw at this community event was shocking!” Wojta wrote. “Totally not family friendly! My mistake was having my husband bring our 12 and 13 year old daughters to hang out with me for awhile. I had a lot of explaining to do! There were many inappropriate displays of dress (or non-dress as the case may be), lewd behavior and general disrespect for the Ferndale community. …I will not be participating in this year’s Pride Fest because of the inappropriate behavior at last year’s event.”

Glenn noted state laws prohibiting erotic nudity and indecency in public, particularly in front of children:
“A person shall not knowingly make any open or indecent exposure of his or her person or of the person of another.” Violation of the statute is punishable “by imprisonment for not more than 1 year, or a fine of not more than $1,000.00, or both.” http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(qfo25luhlavlne55zuhdcr55))/mileg.as…

Michigan Penal Code 750.145 (c)(1)(j) defines “child sexually abusive activity” to include “passive sexual involvement” — “an act, real or simulated, that exposes another person to or draws another person’s attention to an act of sexual intercourse, erotic fondling, sadomasochistic abuse, masturbation, sexual excitement, or erotic nudity because of viewing any of these acts or because of the proximity of the act to that person, for the purpose of real or simulated overt sexual gratification or stimulation of 1 or more of the persons involved.” http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(jxqazl55qat44h45…

Glenn cited media reports of public sex acts and nudity during homosexual street festivals in Toronto and San Francisco in which police reportedly failed to enforce laws against such behavior in public. He included as an example a YouTube video of a lesbian couple simulating a sex act on the trunk of a Toronto police car. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u3kw2b1-M8

“We hope that the Ferndale Police will take a different approach this Sunday, despite published accounts by a local ‘transgender’ activist supportive of the event, including eyewitness commentary by a local Ferndale business person, which indicate that your department has failed to effectively police public nudity and indecency during past Motor City Pride events,” Glenn wrote Kitchen.

“Please issue a public statement assuring the public that your department will in fact this Sunday be faithfully enforcing state laws against public nudity, public indecency, and child sexually abusive activity, including laws against allowing children to witness public nudity or real or simulated sex acts on the streets of Ferndale,” he wrote.

“Or, if you do not intend to do so, or are not confident that you can effectively do so, please issue a public statement warning the public that if they attend, they and their children may be exposed to illegal acts of public nudity, indecency, and sexual activity on the streets of Ferndale.”

# # #

To read the full text of Glenn’s e-mail to Chief Kitchens, including full text at the end of comments published by Stephanie Loveless in his e-mail newsletter “Ferndale Friends”, click on more.

(more…)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wed., May 21, 2008
CONTACT: Gary Glenn 989-835-7978

Michigan homosexual lobby backs jail, lawsuits
for refusal to recognize homosexual “marriage”

Columnist: Triangle Fdn’s Kosofsky says business owners
should be jailed, newspapers sued and “slapped publicly”

SEATTLE — Michigan’s largest homosexual activist group says once marriage is legally redefined to include homosexual couples, business owners and even news media outlets who refuse to recognize such marriages should be jailed or sued and “publicly slapped,” a Jewish and openly bisexual columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Tuesday.

Statements attributed in the column to homosexual lobbyist Sean Kosofsky, director of policy for the Detroit-based Triangle Foundation, were denounced Wednesday by American Family Association of Michigan President Gary Glenn, co-author of the Marriage Protection Amendment approved by voters in 2004 to constitutionally reaffirm the legal definition of marriage in Michigan as only between one man and one woman.

“The Triangle Foundation openly admits homosexual activists’ intentions, once they gain sufficient political power, to impose their radical social agenda on America by brute force, trampling cherished American values such as religious freedom, freedom of speech, academic freedom, and even freedom of the press if it stands in their way,” Glenn said.

Glenn pointed to comments by Kosofsky reported Monday by David Benkof, author of Gay Essentials: Facts for Your Queer Brain and founder of the Q Syndicate, a “gay”-press syndicate that provides columns and other material to a hundred homosexual newspapers.

Benkof, who strays from “gay” political orthodoxy by opposing the redefinition of marriage, wrote in a column published Tuesday by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he had interviewed homosexual activists nationally about the legal implications of a California Supreme Court ruling last week declaring a constitutional “right” to so-called homosexual “marriage.”

Benkof wrote: “A representative of the largest Michigan gay-rights group, the Triangle Foundation…told me that people who continue to act as if marriage is a union between a man and a woman should face being fined, fired and even jailed until they relent. What happens if a traditionally religious business owner wants to extend his ‘marriage discount’ only to couples married in his eyes? Sean Kosofsky of Michigan’s largest gay-rights group, the Triangle Foundation, says, ‘If you are a public accommodation and you are open to anyone on Main Street, that means you must be open to everyone on Main Street. If they don’t do it, that’s contempt and they will go to jail.’ ”

(See full Benkof column: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/363878_califgays21.html)

Glenn said the Triangle Foundation routinely justifies its hostility toward individuals and organizations who disagree with homosexual activists’ political agenda, as well as Triangle’s
admitted plans to suppress their opponents’ free speech rights, by demonizing those who support traditional one-man, one-woman marriage as promoters of “hate” and violence.

* The Triangle Foundation’s web site currently features a news release charging that support for Michigan’s Marriage Protection Amendment by Glenn and Catholic Cardinal Adam Maida of the Archdiocese of Detroit was a motivating factor in the alleged beating death of a homosexual senior citizen last year in Detroit. “It is appalling hypocrisy,” the statement reads, “for (Glenn and Maida) to pretend that their venomous words and organizing have no connection to the plague of hate violence against gay people, including the murder of Mr. Anthos.” http://www.tri.org/violence/pdfs/taskforce.pdf

Triangle’s claims were proven false when police reported they found no evidence of assault and
the Wayne County medical examiner’s office concluded the man had died from natural causes after a fall resulting from arthritic paralysis. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,262308,00.html

* Kosofsky has for years publicly accused Glenn’s organization of supporting murder, though only one news media outlet has ever published the allegation. “We personally believe that the AFA may support the murder of gay, lesbian and bisexual people,” Kosofsky said, as reported in 2001 by State News, the student newspaper at Michigan State University.
http://www.statenews.com/index.php/article/2001/11/gay-rights_group_fights

And Kosofsky in a published column in 2005 called Cardinal Maida “recklessly wicked,” accused him of “arrogance, bigotry and hypocrisy,” and said the Catholic church’s position in support of one-man, one-woman marriage “should be tossed in the trash.”
http://www.pridesource.com/article.shtml?article=13021

Glenn also noted that when Kosofsky said news media outlets should be sued and “slapped publicly” if they report material to which homosexual activists object, one example may have been fresh on his mind. Last month, Kosofsky attacked WNEM-TV Channel 5, Saginaw, for its coverage of a pro-homosexual student protest in public schools. “WNEM has run one of the worst stories I have seen in recent years on Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender issues by using insensitive and inflammatory terms,” Kosofsky wrote on his blog, Blog O’ Queer.
http://www.blogoqueer.org/2008/04/horrible-coverage-of-day-of-silence-in.html

Violations of religious freedom, free speech rights, academic freedom, and freedom of the press have become routine in countries and states that have already adopted so-called homosexual “marriage” or “hate crime” laws based on homosexual behavior, Glenn said.

* Swedish Pastor Ake Green in 2004 was sentenced to 30 days in jail for preaching a sermon in which he defined homosexual behavior as sinful and harmful to society. http://www.akegreen.org

* Baptist Press reported in 2005: “A Catholic bishop in Canada is under investigation by a government agency for condemning ‘gay marriage’… The bishop, Fred Henry of Calgary, is being investigated by the Alberta Human Rights Commission for comments he made about homosexuality in both a letter to parishioners and a Calgary Sun newspaper column. Two homosexuals filed the complaints.” http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=20716

* The Irish Times reported in 2003: “Clergy and bishops who distribute the Vatican’s latest publication describing homosexual activity as ‘evil’ could face prosecution under incitement to hatred legislation. …Those convicted under the Act can face jail terms of up to six months.”
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/frontpage/2003/0802/1059775167952.html

* The London Daily Telegraph reported in 2006: “New Government proposals on equality could require clergy to bless homosexual ‘weddings’ or face prosecution, the Church of England said yesterday. It said the proposed regulations could undermine official teaching and require Christians to act against their religious convictions.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1520849/Church-%27could-be-forced-to-bless-gay-weddings%27.html

* Catholic Charities in Boston was forced by a state “sexual orientation” law to either process the adoption of children to homosexual couples, a direct violation of Vatican policy, or abandon their century-old adoption referral services altogether. They chose the latter. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/03/11/catholic_charities_stuns_state_ends_adoptions

* The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix newspaper was ordered by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal to pay three homosexual men $1,500 each after the newspaper agreed to run an ad that featured Bible verses critical of homosexual behavior. “As the Star-Phoenix lawyer said in his closing statement (before the Tribunal), ‘A Human Rights ruling against the Star-Phoenix and Mr. Owens could limit freedom of speech in the media, in churches and in classrooms.’” http://www.realwomenca.com/newsletter/1999_Sept_Oct/article_7.html

* A British couple were questioned by police on possible “hate crime” charges after they wrote a letter-to-the-editor of their local newspaper criticizing city officials for distributing brochures at city hall promoting homosexual behavior. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lancashire/4555406.stm

* The London Daily Telegraph reported last month: “A Christian couple who have taken in 28 children have been forced to give up being foster parents after they refused to promote homosexuality. Vincent Matherick, 65, and his 61-year-old wife Pauline were told by social services that they had to comply with legislation requiring them to treat homosexuality as equal to heterosexuality.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1567160/Christian-foster-parents-condemn-’gay-laws’.html

* A British Anglican bishop in February was fined for refusing to hire an openly homosexual man as a church youth minister. http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/feb/08021104.html

* The London Daily Telegraph reported in 2003: “A bishop who angered homosexuals by suggesting they seek a psychiatric cure is to be investigated by police to see if his outspoken views amount to a criminal offence, it emerged yesterday.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1446318/Bishop%27s-anti-gay-comments-spark-legal-investigation.html

* Eleven Christians in Philadelphia — including two grandmothers in their 70’s, one white and one African-American — were arrested and charged with “ethnic intimidation” under Pennsylvania’s “hate crimes” law when they tried to read Bible verses out loud during a homosexual street festival. They faced a cumulative 47 years in prison had they been convicted. http://www.cultureandfamily.org/articledisplay.asp?id=6542&department=CFI&categoryid=nation

* A New Mexico Christian photographer was fined $6,600 for refusing on religious grounds to photograph a homosexual marriage-like “commitment” ceremony.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200804/CUL20080416a.html

* Catholic bishops in Belgium and Spain were sued in 2004 by homosexual activist groups for making public statements in opposition to homosexual behavior and homosexual “marriage.”
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=43235

* Boston public school teachers were threatened with termination if they failed to portray so-called homosexual “marriage” in a positive light. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=27201

###

American Family Association of Michigan President Gary Glenn testified before the Royal Oak City Commission in March, urging commissioners to adopt an ordinance requiring the the installation of pornography-blocking software on all computers in the city’s public library. View Glenn’s testimony here: http://www.afamichigan.org/2008/04/02/afa-michigan-urges-royal-oak-to-filter-internet-porn-at-city-library

AFA-Michigan urges you to contact your local library and/or city officials to urge them to follow Royal Oak’s example…see below.

DAILY TRIBUNE
Royal Oak, Michigan
May 20, 2008

Library forced to use filters
Commission passes law limiting
Internet access to pornography

By Catherine Kavanaugh
Daily Tribune Staff Writer

ROYAL OAK– The public library will get filtering devices on all but one of the computers used by adults following passage Monday of an ordinance aimed at restricting Internet access.

In a 4-3 vote, the City Commission mandated the installation of software technology designed to block adult computer users from viewing Web sites with obscene material.

The Royal Oak Public Library has always filtered computers in its children’s department. The February arrest of a man who allegedly looked at child pornography in the adult computer lab resurrected the debate of filtering those terminals, too.

City Commissioners Michael Andrzejak, Terry Drinkwine, Stephen Miller and Chuck Semchena backed the ordinance. They said they want to provide maximum protection to library patrons and employees who could walk by a computer screen showing pornography and anyone who wouldn’t want to share the facility with someone looking for that kind of information.

“I believe there’s a danger from people willing to commit these crimes not only at home in private but in a public place,” Semchena said.

Semchena also said he was looking for a reason to change his vote but doesn’t think the steps taken by the Library Board of Trustees, such as requiring adults to show identification before using a computer, go far enough.

“I think you did some good work but it doesn’t rise to that level for me,” Semchena told library board members who attended the commission meeting.

Drinkwine complimented the board for its stricter ID policy, which has significantly reduced demand for computer time, according to library officials.

“You have to wonder why that it is,” Drinkwine said.

If the filters end up blocking access to legitimate research, too, the commission can reconsider the ordinance, Drinkwine added.

“It’s not something we can’t revisit if you prove it is totally unworkable,” he told the library board. “The only way we will know is to put it into practice and see how it shakes out.”

Mayor James Ellison and City Commissioner Carlo Ginotti and Gary Lelito said they don’t think the ordinance is necessary. No filters block all pornography and the devices can prevent people from going to useful Web sites dealing with health issues, such as sexually transmitted diseases.

“You can’t protect yourself from a chainsaw by taking away 50 percent of its teeth,” Ellison said. “A filter might cut out some of what is out there but it can’t filter all of it.”

The mayor said he prefers filtering patrons with ID checks and constant staff monitoring, which the library does, instead of filtering Internet content.

“I think the library board has the situation under control,” Ellison said just before the vote. “But the ordinance will pass. We will filter our computers and go from there. I wish it wasn’t happening but it’s not the end of the world.”

Ordinances go into effect 10 days after passage. David Palmer, the library board chairman, said the volunteer group will act as quickly as it can to comply.

“We have a directive and we will move ahead with it,” Palmer said.

Frank Houston, another member, said the library board has looked at filters offered by five companies and is leaning toward a device called WebBlocker, which stops access to Web page addresses in dozens of content categories.

One computer must be left unfiltered for Royal Oak to comply with the Michigan Library Privacy Act, which was amended in 1999 to strike a balance between respecting the free speech and privacy of adults while protecting children from obscene material.

Royal Oak could be the first city in Michigan to pass an ordinance forcing the library board to install filters, according to a spokesperson with the Michigan Municipal League. Other libraries leave only one terminal unfiltered as a matter of policy.

In his opposition to the ordinance, Ginotti said, “The worst way to fix a problem is to legislate it.”

However, Andrzejak said he hasn’t heard any public outcry in the cities where public libraries filter computers to the maximum level allowed by state law.

“I’ve been involved in this discussion going back a decade when I was on the library board and advocated for filters,” Andrzejak said. “…I’m not a holy roller. I’m not a liberal. I’m a man in the middle and I think this is right for the community.”

http://www.dailytribune.com/stories/052008/loc_localn04.shtml

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thurs., May 15, 2008

CONTACT: Gary Glenn 989-835-7978

California decision proves wisdom of Michigan voters’ approval of marriage amendment in ‘04

Marriage law in Michigan at risk if federal Defense of Marriage Act repealed, amendment co-author says

Midland, Mich. — The California Supreme Court ruling Thursday legalizing so-called homosexual “marriage” proves Michigan voters’ “wisdom and foresight” in approving a Marriage Protection Amendment to the state constitution in 2004 to put the definition of marriage beyond the reach of activist judges, a co-author of the amendment said.

Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, first proposed the amendment in June 2003, the day an Ontario, Canada, court issued a ruling legalizing so-called homosexual “marriage” on Michigan’s border. Nearly 60 percent of Michigan voters voted to approve the amendment seventeen months later on the November 2004 ballot.

Glenn noted that in declaring a constitutional “right” to so-called homosexual “marriage,” the California Supreme Court overturned a state law approved by 61 percent of California voters on the ballot in 2000. Had that ballot measure been not just a statute, but a constitutional amendment as it was in Michigan, it could not have been overturned by the court, he said. http://www.gaydemographics.org/USA/elections/2000-2002.htm

“The California decision proves that activist judges cannot be trusted to uphold either existing marriage laws or even a vote of the people themselves,” Glenn said, “and it proves how right Michigan voters were to secure the definition of marriage in Michigan in our state constitution in advance, before judges tried the same thing here.”

“It should also be a wakeup call to Americans that the real threat to radically redefine marriage is still very much alive,” Glenn said. “Even here in Michigan, our state laws and constitutional protections of marriage could be undone by activist judges if the federal Defense of Marriage Act is amended or repealed as early as next year, as major candidates for federal office are promising to do if elected.”

The federal DOMA was enacted in 1996 and provides that a state cannot be forced to accept or recognize so-called homosexual “marriages” legally performed in other states. Glenn said repeal of that federal law would allow a federal judge to order Michigan to recognize so-called homosexual “marriages” performed in California or in Massachusetts, where activist judges redefined marriage in 2003. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act

Glenn noted that Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama has called for full repeal of DOMA. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/08/would-obama-pos.html

Plus, Glenn said, all Democrats representing Michigan in Congress, plus three Republicans — House members Joe Knollenberg, Thad McCotter, and Candice Miller — last year voted in favor of openly homosexual Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.’s “Employment Non-Discrimination Act,” which both the White House and House Republican leaders said would empower federal judges to force states to recognize homosexual “marriages” performed in other states. Only President Bush’s veto threat has thus far stopped Frank’s bill from becoming law.

The White House in a statement said Frank’s legislation threatened to add federal recognition to homosexual “marriages” recognized under state law, as in Massachusetts and now California. “Provisions of this bill purport to give Federal statutory significance to same-sex marriage rights under State law. These provisions conflict with the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the legal union between one man and one woman. The Administration strongly opposes any attempt to weaken this law, which is vital to defending the sanctity of marriage.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/legislative/sap/110-1/hr3685sap-r.pdf

House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Frank’s legislation if enacted “puts activist judges in the position of imposing same-sex marriage and civil union laws on states. Simply by using ENDA as the basis of their decisions – just as state Supreme Courts have done with state-level ENDA laws in the past – liberal judges will be empowered under this legislation to single-handedly undermine state and federal marriage laws across the country. I’m disappointed that the Majority turned back a straightforward proposal offered by House Republicans to protect state and federal marriage laws from being overturned, modified, or restricted by activist judges as a result of this deeply flawed legislation.” http://republicanleader.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=78178

Glenn pledged that the American Family Association of Michigan “will continue to stand firmly for constitutionally protecting marriage between one man and one woman and to uphold and defend the vote of the people of Michigan.”

“What the California decision should make clear is that the fight to protect one-man, one-woman marriage from the politically powerful homosexual lobby is far from over,” Glenn said. “It’s an ongoing fight that, for the sake of our children, requires eternal vigilance nationwide and here in Michigan.”

###

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wed., May 14, 2008
CONTACT: Gary Glenn 989-835-7978

Study: Divorce, unwed births cost
Mich. taxpayers $1.5 billion a year

Family group backs bill to change state divorce law

LANSING, Mich. — High rates of divorce and children born out of wedlock cost Michigan taxpayers over $1.5 billion in public expenditures for government services each year, a new nationwide study found, making the need for public policies that promote getting and staying married not just a social or moral issue but a matter of dollars and cents, a statewide family values group said Wednesday.

The American Family Association of Michigan Wednesday forwarded to Gov. Jennifer Granholm and legislative leaders the results of first-ever research that calculated a minimum $112 billion annual cost to taxpayers nationwide resulting from high rates of divorce and unmarried childbearing. The landmark study — “The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and All 50 States” — was released last month at the National Press Club by two national family policy and research groups, the Institute for American Values and the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy.

Full study and background information: http://www.americanvalues.org/html/coff_mediaadvisory.htm
Executive summary: http://www.americanvalues.org/coff/executive_summary.pdf

“This study documents that divorce and unwed childbearing, which everyone knows are bad for children, are also costing Michigan taxpayers billions of dollars,” wrote AFA-Michigan President Gary Glenn. “Even a small improvement in the health of marriages in Michigan would result in an enormous savings to taxpayers. Stronger families and fewer family breakups mean less crime, less poverty, and less reliance on costly government programs and social services.”

Glenn said an example of a public policy change that would reduce taxpayer costs due to marriage dissolution is bipartisan legislation introduced by Rep. Fulton Sheen, R-Allegan, Rep. Joel Sheltrown, D-West Branch, and twelve other lawmakers that would only allow divorce in Michigan if a couple is childless or if adultery, abandonment, or spousal or child abuse is involved. (House Bill 5761: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2007-2008/billintroduced/House/htm/2008-HIB-5761.htm)

Such legislation would help save taxpayers money by making it more difficult to break up a marriage when children are involved, Glenn said, pointing to the new study’s finding that of the 1.3 million households in Michigan living in poverty, 57 percent are comprised of households headed by a single or divorced female.

To calculate the fiscal impact of divorce and unwed child-bearing, the study projected that if all of those currently single or divorced females were to marry, a conservative estimate of at least 60 percent of them would see their family’s standard of living rise above the poverty level, reducing the total number of Michigan households living in poverty by 34 percent and saving Michigan taxpayers over $1.5 billion annually. (See state-by-state tables on pages 36 and 38 of the study.)

Dr. Ben Scafidi, Ph.D., economics professor at Georgia College & State University and the study’s principal investigator, said the costs were calculated on the basis of “increased taxpayer expenditures for anti-poverty, criminal justice and education programs, and through lower levels of taxes paid by individuals whose adult productivity has been negatively affected by increased childhood poverty caused by family fragmentation.”

“Prior research shows that marriage lifts single mothers out of poverty and therefore reduces the need for costly social benefits,” Scafidi said. “This new report shows that public concern about the decline of marriage need not be based only on ‘moral’ concerns, but that reducing high taxpayer costs of family fragmentation is a legitimate concern of government, policymakers and legislators, as well as community reformers and faith communities.”

The study’s findings were vetted by scholars and economists including faculty from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University, Morehouse College, Kennesaw State University, Mercer University, the University of Virginia, the Brookings Institution, the Urban Institute, and the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee. http://www.americanvalues.org/coff/advisors.pdf

Glenn said Michigan avoided even higher costs to taxpayers associated with the potential decline of marriage when voters in 2004 approved a Marriage Protection Amendment to the state constitution reaffirming the state’s legal definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.

He noted a commentary by Harvard constitutional law professor Mary Ann Glendon, writing in the Wall Street Journal, who wrote that “the Canadian government, which is considering same-sex marriage legislation, has just realized that retroactive social-security survivor benefits alone would cost its taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.” http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004735

He also pointed to researchers who believe that public policy decisions in Europe redefining marriage to include homosexual couples and group marriage, thus diluting society’s commitment to marriage as the social ideal for raising children and breaking the traditional connection between marriage and child-bearing has contributed to a dramatic decline in the marriage rate and a dramatic increase in the percentage of children born out of wedlock. Both are major factors, the new study found, in increasing the tax burden for government services.

“Dutch Debate”: http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz200407210936.asp

“The End of Marriage in Scandinavia”: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp

“No Nordic Bliss”: http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz200602280810.asp

“Zombie Killers”: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTU4NDEzNTY5ODNmOWU4M2Y1MGIwMTcyODdjZGQxOTk=

###

“The people of Michigan have constitutionally protected marriage as exclusively the union of one man and one woman, period, and that includes prohibiting the recognition of homosexual relationships as equal or similar to marriage for any purpose, including offering spousal-type benefits to the homosexual partners of government employees,” said Gary Glenn, one of the co-authors of the Marriage Protection Amendment and head of the American Family Association of Michigan.

CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY
Denver, Colorado
May 8, 2008

Michigan court rules that marriage law
bans same-sex partnership benefits

Lansing, Mich. (CNA) — The Michigan General Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the state’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages also blocks Michigan governments and state universities from offering “domestic partnership” benefits for homosexual couples.

The Marriage Protection Amendment was approved by nearly sixty percent of voters in 2004. Considered the broadest of the 11 state marriage amendments barring same-sex marriage, the language of the Michigan amendment says “…the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.”

The Michigan ACLU, representing the AFL-CIO homosexual activist group National Pride at Work, had challenged the application of the law as based in Attorney General Mike Cox’s interpretation of the amendment.

The Michigan court’s 5-2 decision did not rule on whether government employment benefits can be offered to homosexual partners on some broader basis also available to other employees. Some local governments and universities have attempted to maintain present benefits by amending the eligibility requirements.

“The people of Michigan have constitutionally protected marriage as exclusively the union of one man and one woman, period, and that includes prohibiting the recognition of homosexual relationships as equal or similar to marriage for any purpose, including offering spousal-type benefits to the homosexual partners of government employees,” said Gary Glenn, one of the co-authors of the Marriage Protection Amendment and head of the American Family Association of Michigan.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, praised the decision, saying, “The Michigan Supreme Court courageously upheld the will of the people.”
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=12591

“Gay rights advocates said the (Michigan Supreme Court) ruling is devastating but also are confident that public-sector employers have successfully rewritten or will revise their benefit plans so same-sex partners can keep getting health care. …

Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, said last year that he didn’t anticipate further suits on the issue. But he said Wednesday: ‘You never say never.’ Glenn, who co-wrote the (Marriage Protection Amendment), said the legality of the new policies depends on whether they’re written broadly enough to cover many other unmarried employees.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lansing, Michigan
May 7, 2008

Michigan high court says gay
partners can’t get health benefits

by David Eggert
The Associated Press

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The Michigan Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a voter-approved ban against gay marriage also prevents governments and state universities from recognizing domestic partnerships to provide health insurance to the partners of gay workers.

The 5-2 decision affects up to 20 universities, community colleges, school districts and governments in Michigan with policies covering at least 375 gay couples.

Gay rights advocates said the ruling is devastating but also are confident that public-sector employers have successfully rewritten or will revise their benefit plans so same-sex partners can keep getting health care.

The constitutional amendment, which passed 59 percent to 41 percent in November 2004, says the union between a man and woman is the only agreement recognized as a marriage “or similar union for any purpose.”

The majority ruled that while marriages and domestic partnerships aren’t identical, they are similar because they’re the only relationships in Michigan defined in terms of gender and lack of a close blood connection. Voters “hardly could have made their intentions clearer,” Justice Stephen Markman wrote, citing the law’s “for any purpose” language.

He was joined by Chief Justice Clifford Taylor and Justices Maura Corrigan, Elizabeth Weaver and Robert Young Jr.

Dissenting Justices Marilyn Kelly and Michael Cavanagh countered that statements made by backers of the measure before the election suggest they only intended to prohibit gay marriage, not take away employment benefits. The dissent also noted that gay partners who qualify for health care aren’t given other benefits of marriage — equal rights to property, for instance.

“It is an odd notion to find that a union that shares only one of the hundreds of benefits that a marriage provides is a union similar to marriage,” Kelly wrote.

The ruling is believed to be one of the first from a state high court interpreting the scope of measures barring gay marriage. Alaska courts went the other way, ruling that it’s unconstitutional to deny benefits. Ohio courts found that domestic violence laws don’t conflict with a ban on gay marriage.

But numerous states have yet to grapple with how their gay marriage bans apply to same-sex partner benefits.

At least 27 states have passed constitutional bans, mostly since 2004 in response to gay marriages being performed in Massachusetts. At least 18 of those states, including Michigan, have broader amendments that also prohibit the recognition of civil unions or same-sex partnerships.

“It’s a sad day in Michigan when we decide which children and which families are valuable enough to cover,” said Tom Patrick, 50, who gets health insurance through his partner, Dennis Patrick, a professor at Eastern Michigan University. The couple from Washtenaw County’s Superior Township has adopted four children and has a foster child, one with a developmental disability. Tom Patrick works part-time to care for the kids and said it would hurt the family to have to pay for his benefits out of pocket.

The Patricks joined 20 other gay couples and filed a lawsuit in 2005 when Republican Attorney General Mike Cox interpreted Michigan’s measure as making unconstitutional same-sex benefits at the city of Kalamazoo and elsewhere.

Sixteen plaintiffs worked for employers who offered same-sex benefits. Another five were employed by the state, which in 2004 agreed to start providing same-sex benefits but delayed them until courts could clear up their legality. Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s administration is reviewing the ruling.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which represented the couples, called the decision “flawed and unfortunate.” It pledged to work with public employers to write “neutral” policies ensuring employees’ partners don’t lose health coverage, but also expressed uneasiness and warned that gays will have to go through more hoops.

New policies no longer acknowledge domestic partnerships but make sure “other qualified adults,” including gay partners, are eligible for medical and dental care. The adults have to live together for a certain amount of time, be unmarried, share finances and be unrelated.

“The university believes all current benefit offerings are in full compliance with Michigan law,” University of Michigan spokeswoman Kelly Cunningham said.

It remains to be seen whether the revised policies will be challenged in court.

Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, said last year that he didn’t anticipate further suits on the issue. But he said Wednesday: “You never say never.”

Glenn, who co-wrote the 2004 measure, said the legality of the new policies depends on whether they’re written broadly enough to cover many other unmarried employees.

The ACLU is weighing whether a federal lawsuit is warranted, while Cox applauded the decision.

The dissent argued that the ballot committee sponsoring the gay marriage ban consistently assured voters that the initiative was only about protecting marriage.

But the majority said other supporters and even opponents of the amendment said ahead of time that benefits would be prohibited by the amendment.

“The role of this Court is not to determine who said what about the amendment before it was ratified, or to speculate about how these statements may have influenced voters,” Markman wrote. “Instead, our responsibility is, as it has always been in matters of constitutional interpretation, to determine the meaning of the amendment’s actual language.”

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/news-53/121017504644810.xml&storylist=newsmichigan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wed., May 7, 2008
CONTACT: Gary Glenn 989-835-7978

5-to-2 ruling validates Cox, marriage amendment supporters

Michigan Supreme Court upholds constitutional ban on govt. recognition of homosexual relationships “for any purpose,” including employment benefits

LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Supreme Court Wednesday ruled that under a Marriage Protection Amendment approved by Michigan voters in 2004, government employers cannot recognize homosexual relationships as equal or similar to marriage for any purpose, including for the purpose of offering spousal-type employment benefits to the homosexual partners of government employees.

The Court did not rule on whether government employment benefits can be offered to homosexual partners on some broader basis also available to other employees, which some local governments and universities — in anticipation of the court’s ruling — have attempted by amending the eligibility requirements for such benefits.

The decision validates the views of amendment supporters and Attorney General Mike Cox, whose interpretations of the amendment and its effects was challenged by the Michigan ACLU, representing the national AFL-CIO’s in-house homosexual activist group, National Pride at Work. www.PrideatWork.org

Gary Glenn, one of two co-authors of the Marriage Protection Amendment, who as president of the American Family Association of Michigan first proposed such an amendment in June 2003 following an Ontario court decision legalizing homosexual “marriage,” welcomed the court’s 5-to-2 decision.

“The Michigan Supreme Court has made clear that universities and state and local governments are not above the law and cannot choose to simply ignore a vote by the people of Michigan,” Glenn said. “The people of Michigan have constitutionally protected marriage as exclusively the union of one man and one woman, period, and that includes prohibiting the recognition of homosexual relationships as equal or similar to marriage for any purpose, including offering spousal-type benefits to the homosexual partners of government employees.”

Glenn said the issue of employment benefits itself was not before the court, citing the court’s clear statement when it wrote that “the only pertinent question (before the court) is whether the public employer is recognizing a domestic partnership as a union similar to marriage for any purpose.” (Bottom of page 13: http://courts.michigan.gov/supremecourt/Clerk/11-07/133429/133429-Opinion.pdf)

“When public employers provide domestic partners health-insurance benefits on the basis of the domestic partnership, they are without a doubt recognizing the partnership,” the court ruled. (page 21: http://courts.michigan.gov/supremecourt/Clerk/11-07/133429/133429-Opinion.pdf)

It is government recognition of such relationships which the Marriage Protection Amendment prohibits, not the benefits themselves, Glenn said.

He said the high court’s ruling “validates 100 percent and in full our interpretation of the Marriage Protection Amendment and its intended effects, which AFA-Michigan has clearly and consistently maintained throughout the 2004 election and over three years of court proceedings that followed. The decision three times in its 34-page decision cited or quoted directly from a legal brief submitted to the court by AFA-Michigan, he noted.

Glenn also noted that in the wake of last year’s Court of Appeals decision on the amendment, upheld Wednesday by the state Supreme Court, “even opponents of the amendment have been forced to admit that AFA-Michigan’s interpretation of its effects has been right all along.”

Homosexual activists and the Michigan ACLU argued during the 2004 campaign that the amendment would prohibit government employee benefits based on government recognition of homosexual relationships; then, after losing the election, the same groups argued in court that the amendment did not prohibit such benefits. Then, after the Court of Appeals decision last year, they reversed course again.

Attorney Jay Kaplan of the Michigan ACLU last June told Lansing City Pulse: “‘The Michigan Court of Appeals decision never said that public employers could not provide health care coverage to domestic partners of employees,’ Kaplan wrote in an e-mail. He said that employers can provide health insurance coverage for domestic partners as long as they do not specifically recognize the domestic partner relationship — by filing domestic partner benefit forms, for example — when determining criteria for insurance eligibility.” http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1133&Itemid=2

Between the Lines, a homosexual activist newsweekly in Detroit, reported: “(ACLU-Michigan lawyer Jay) Kaplan says that even under the Appeals Court ruling, benefits can be offered, but they have to be done in a way which does not recognize same-sex partners or relationships.” http://www.pridesource.com/article.shtml?article=25497

Kalamazoo Alliance for Equality, a homosexual activist group, said last June in a news release: “The Michigan Court of Appeals did not say that health insurance coverage for domestic partners is illegal. The court said that public employers cannot use criteria that recognizes the domestic partner relationship.” http://www.tri.org/docs/Kzoodprallies.doc

In order to be constitutional, the Court of Appeals had ruled, the eligibility criteria for benefits must be broad-based, not based specifically on singling out and recognizing homosexual partnerships for special treatment as if they are equal or similar to marriage between a man and a woman.

As a result, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and other public employers in the state have expanded the eligibility criteria of their benefit plans so as not to unconstitutionally offer benefits based on exclusively recognizing and benefiting homosexual relationships as if they’re equal or similar to marriage. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/15/benefits

“The irony is that despite all the manufactured outrage and falsehoods from homosexual activists and their newspaper editorial board allies over the last three years, the direct result of the changes required by the Marriage Protection Amendment is that more not fewer Michigan citizens are today eligible for coverage under health insurance plans offered by government employers,” Glenn said.

During the 2004 campaign, the campaign committee opposing the Marriage Protection Amendment praised Glenn and AFA-Michigan for openly acknowledging the effect the amendment would have regarding benefits based on government recognition of homosexual partnerships:

“The Coalition for a Fair Michigan said today that they were happy to find common ground with the Michigan affiliate of the American Family Association, one of the lead proponents of the proposed constitutional amendment that would ban legal recognition of any relationships other than opposite-sex marriage. Last night, at a forum on the amendment…both sides agreed that the amendment would go much further than defining marriage by also eliminating any government-sanctioned domestic partnership benefits. ‘I’m glad we could find common ground with the AFA, and I want to thank Gary Glenn for his willingness to be upfront on this point,’ said Wendy Howell, Campaign Manager for CFM.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20040920142248/www.coalitionforafairmichigan.org/6_24.htm