“In what apparently would be a first-in-the-nation type of law impacting religious freedom, the Tennessee legislature gave final passage May 18 to a bill revoking a Nashville ordinance that protects employees based on their homosexuality or transgender status… The Tennessee House of Representatives voted 70-26 for a Senate-approved version of the (legislation), which would prevent local governments from enacting nondiscrimination ordinances that go beyond existing state and federal law.

It also would repeal a (‘gay rights’) measure already adopted by the Nashville Metro Council. Tennessee law already prohibits employers from discriminating based on ‘race, creed, color, religion, sex, age, or national origin.’ The Nashville Metro Council went further in early April, requiring businesses that contract with the city to add employment policies with protections for the categories of ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity.’”

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BAPTIST PRESS
Nashville, Tennessee
May 19, 2011

“Gender identity” repeal bill goes to Tennessee governor

Southern Baptist Convention leaders urge him to sign

by Baptist Press staff
NASHVILLE (BP) — In what apparently would be a first-in-the-nation type of law impacting religious freedom, the Tennessee legislature gave final passage May 18 to a bill revoking a Nashville ordinance that protects employees based on their homosexuality or transgender status, and Southern Baptist leaders quickly appealed to Gov. Bill Haslam to sign it into law.

The Tennessee House of Representatives voted 70-26 for a Senate-approved version of the Equal Access to Intrastate Commerce Act, which would prevent local governments from enacting nondiscrimination ordinances that go beyond existing state and federal law. It also would repeal a measure already adopted by the Nashville Metro Council.

Tennessee law already prohibits employers from discriminating based on “race, creed, color, religion, sex, age, or national origin.” The Nashville Metro Council went further in early April, requiring businesses that contract with the city to add employment policies with protections for the categories of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

After the House vote May 18, three Southern Baptist officials encouraged Haslam in a letter to sign the legislation. The letter was from Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC); Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Executive Committee; and Randy Davis, executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Convention.

Land, Page and Davis told Haslam, a Republican, the measure would protect the religious liberty of Christian business owners in the state. The legislation also will assure the uniform application of the state’s nondiscrimination laws, thereby protecting employers from having to deal with a variety of municipal policies and maintaining the General Assembly’s authority.

Without the law, the constitutional rights of Christian business owners “may be infringed by expansive local non-discrimination laws,” Land, Page and Davis said in the letter. “It is the conviction of many that elevating ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ as a protective class is wrong. … There is no evidence to dictate equating homosexual behavior with immutable distinctiveness. To do so mitigates the value of inalienable rights and trivializes the effort of those who seek to protect them.”

The measure will provide a “safeguard from any further economic perplexity and prioritize Tennessee state law,” they told Haslam, who was elected in November.

“Sexual orientation” can encompass homosexuality and bisexuality, as well as transgender status. “Gender identity” is a term that “refers to a person’s innate, deeply felt psychological identification as male or female, which may or may not correspond to the person’s body or designated sex at birth,” according to the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest homosexual organization.

Some opponents of the Nashville ordinance say it could lead to men using women’s restrooms. The concern over restrooms is that “gender identity” in the ordinance could mean a man who inwardly identifies as a female will have legal protection to enter a women’s restroom.

The House passed the bill in late April but was required to accept an amendment added by the Senate. Senators approved their version May 12 in a 21-8 roll call. The amendment added a severability clause, which would enable the remainder of the bill to stay in effect if a court strikes down the section rescinding the Nashville ordinance.

The ERLC became engaged on the issue at the request of Davis, Land said. The ERLC mounted a multi-pronged effort, often involving Tennessee Baptist leadership, to work for passage of the bill in the legislature. The ERLC’s efforts included emails, direct mail, faxes and phone calls to the legislature; action alerts to Tennessee Baptists, and op-eds in the news media, according to the organization. Land devoted part of his national weekend radio program to the importance of passing the state law. Among actions taken by the ERLC:

– Land, Page and Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, co-wrote a March column published in The Tennessean that expressed concern about the Metro Council’s proposal before it was approved.

– Land, Davis and Robert Sumrall, executive director of the Nashville Baptist Association, urged the Metro Council in an April 4 letter to defeat the proposed ordinance.

– Land and Davis endorsed the state legislation in an April 11 letter to House Commerce Committee members.

– Land called for support of the bill in an April 29 letter to the Senate’s State and Local Government Committee

– Land urged the Senate in a May 11 letter to approve the bill.

– Land and Davis urged Tennessee recipients of the ERLC’s email alerts to contact their senators about supporting the measure.

Land described the ERLC’s efforts as instrumental in giving voice to thousands of Southern Baptists in the state and thanked the Tennessee Baptist leadership for the opportunity to partner with the state convention to involve Southern Baptists in working for passage of the legislation.

David Fowler, president of the conservative group Family Action of Tennessee, has said the bill would be a “first-in-the-nation kind of law.”

Homosexual activists have endorsed the Nashville ordinance. The Tennessee Equality Project said the measure sends a message “that if you’re talented and willing to work, you’re welcome in Nashville.”

http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/BPnews.asp?ID=35341
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The Senate approved, 19-11, a modified version of Sen. Stacey Campfield’s bill to block teaching about homosexuality in kindergarten through eighth grade.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/may/21/senate-oks-bill-to-ban-teaching-of-homosexuality/
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MICHIGAN MESSENGER
Lansing, Michigan
May 20, 2011

Budget deal includes controversial non-budgetary provisions
Snyder legal counsel calls one unconstitutional

by Todd A. Heywood

http://michiganmessenger.com/49148/budget-deal-includes-controversial-non-budgetary-provisions
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Queerty columnist openly admits that so-called anti-bullying bills are a Trojan Horse propaganda ploy by which to promote homosexual behavior as safe and normal in our public schools.

In fact, medical research indicates that such behavior is a severe threat to both personal and public health, associated with a dramatically higher incidence of mental illness, eating disorders, substance abuse, syphilis and other STDs, serious life-threatening diseases such as cancer, hepatitis, and AIDS, and premature death by up to 20 years.

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Homosexual columnist writes:

“We want educators to teach future generations of children to accept queer sexuality. …The younger generation doesn’t fear homosexuality as much because they’re exposed to fags on TV, online, and at school. And I don’t know a single lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender person who wants that to stop.

I for one certainly want tons of school children to learn that it’s OK to be gay, that people of the same sex should be allowed to legally marry each other, and that anyone can kiss a person of the same sex without feeling like a freak.

…I and a lot of other people want to indoctrinate, recruit, teach, and expose children to queer sexuality and there’s nothing wrong with that.

…(W)e do our opponents an even greater service when we trip all over ourselves promising not to mention queers in front of the kids when in fact we’d love to. And because we hide from this very basic fact and treat it like something to be ashamed of, we end up with watered-down unemotional pleas for equality…

How about this? How about we accept that we want kids to think better about queers… That would at least be honest.”

http://www.queerty.com/can-we-please-just-start-admitting-that-we-do-actually-want-to-indoctrinate-kids-20110512/
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Those who warn its practitioners about the obvious hazard to their spiritual health and the voluminously documented threat to their physical, mental, and emotional health?

Or activist organizations and politicians — such as the city councils right now in Traverse City and Holland — who demand laws expressly giving special protection to homosexual behavior and want our children taught at school that it’s normal and healthy?

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“Gay men in California are nearly twice as likely to report a cancer diagnosis as straight men in the state, according to new research published online Monday in the medical journal Cancer. …The results show about 8% of gay men had experienced a cancer diagnosis, compared with only about 5% of straight men.

…Researchers speculate the increased cancer prevalence among gay men is associated with HIV status…,” said study author Ulrike Boehmer, an associate professor at Boston University School of Public Health.

Anal cancer, lung cancer, testicular cancer and Hodgkin’s lymphoma are more prevalent among men who are HIV positive, Boehmer said. The study found gay men were also more likely to get cancer at a younger age than straight men – almost 10 years sooner – at the age of 41, on average.”

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CNN
Atlanta, Georgia
May 13, 2011

More cancer among gay men, California study finds

Gay men in California are nearly twice as likely to report a cancer diagnosis as straight men in the state, according to new research published online Monday in the medical journal Cancer.

Few cancer studies investigate how sexual orientation might affect cancer risk and survivorship, often because study participants are not asked about their sexual orientation. In Monday’s study, researchers used a large health survey conducted by the state of California – in which respondents were asked about their orientation – to examine the impact cancer may be having on gays and lesbians in the state.

The results show about 8% of gay men had experienced a cancer diagnosis, compared with only about 5% of straight men. Among straight women and lesbians, the cancer prevalence trends were more closely matched.

Researchers speculate the increased cancer prevalence among gay men is associated with HIV status.

“There’s a higher prevalence of HIV positive men in the gay population, and we know that being HIV positive is related to cancers, so this might drive the differences we found,” said study author Ulrike Boehmer, an associate professor at Boston University School of Public Health.

Anal cancer, lung cancer, testicular cancer and Hodgkin’s lymphoma are more prevalent among men who are HIV positive, Boehmer said.

The study found gay men were also more likely to get cancer at a younger age than straight men – almost 10 years sooner – at the age of 41, on average.

Boehmer’s findings show cancer may be having a different impact on lesbians.

“Those with cancer are twice a likely to report that they are in fair or poor health,” she said, as compared with straight female survivors.

Why lesbian cancer survivors may perceive their health to be so poor is uncertain. Boehmer hopes her findings will help lead to more targeted cancer intervention programs to help lesbian cancer survivors overcome their health problems, as well as more targeted cancer prevention programs for gay men.

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/09/more-cancer-among-gay-men-california-study-finds/?hpt=T2
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miag@michigan.gov

And while you’re at it, let the the Citizen Patriot know you agree with their editorial.

bwheeler@citpat.com

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“In 2004, state employee unions bargained for same-sex partner benefits for their members. That was before voters that year approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. The state Civil Service Commission got around that obstacle by applying state benefits not just to homosexual partners, but to any adult who lives with a state employee. The friend who rents a room, then, could qualify.

The governor’s administration predicts domestic benefits will cost the state $8 million a year, so there’s a financial worry. Also, this commission’s ruling circumvents the law. Like it or not, voters said they did not support gay marriage or partner benefits. The state is obligated to carry out that mandate.”

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THE CITIZEN PATRIOT
Jackson, Michigan
May 13, 2011

Editorial

Attorney general Bill Schuette right to challenge
excessive domestic partner benefits for state workers

If you work for the state of Michigan and are looking for a few dollars, have we got a money-making idea for you!

Get a roommate, wait for a year, then offer to sell him or her health insurance. What’s a fair rate: $250 a month? $500? $1,000?

Oh, don’t worry, you don’t have to provide the health coverage. The state of Michigan will pick up the tab. Thanks, taxpayers!

Anyone who can appreciate the absurdity of this arrangement should be cheering on Bill Schuette. Michigan’s attorney general went to court last week to overturn a requirement that government has to cover domestic benefits for state workers.

A little history: In 2004, state employee unions bargained for same-sex partner benefits for their members. That was before voters that year approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

The state Civil Service Commission got around that obstacle by applying state benefits not just to homosexual partners, but to any adult who lives with a state employee. The friend who rents a room, then, could qualify.

Lawmakers failed to overturn this ruling because they could not get the two-thirds majority they needed by law.

Opponents argued that the state should protect gay rights. Unfortunately, that is not the issue. The governor’s administration predicts domestic benefits will cost the state $8 million a year, so there’s a financial worry. Also, this commission’s ruling circumvents the law. Like it or not, voters said they did not support gay marriage or partner benefits. The state is obligated to carry out that mandate.

The law is the law. That’s why the attorney general has to stand up for it.

http://www.mlive.com/opinion/jackson/index.ssf/2011/05/editorial_benefits_have_costs.html
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And our thanks to Rep. Dave Agema, also criticized in this article for his higher education budget amendment to reduce taxpayer funding of state universities that use public funds to subsidize homosexual activity among university employees.

http://michiganmessenger.com/48853/schuette-files-suit-against-partner-benefits
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Now do the math. Men who engage in homosexual behavior comprise about 2 percent of the male population in the U.S., but were responsible for 64 percent of male syphilis cases reported.

And the rational response of some politicians is to pass laws giving special “protected class” status to individuals who engage in such behavior and thus pose a serious threat not only to their own health, but to public health, driving up the cost to taxpayers of both healthcare and government spending on public health and social programs.

Traverse City politicians did so late last year, and the Holland City Council plans to take up a “gay right” ordinance in the immediate future.

http://www.pridesource.com/article.html?article=29522
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WOOD RADIO
Grand Rapids, Michigan
May 6, 2011

AFA cheers AG’s suit regarding benefits
for state workers’ domestic partners

Civil Service Commission okayed health coverage for partners of state workers and
others in their homes. AFA of Michigan President Gary Glenn calls it “unconscionable.”

by John C. Smith, WOOD Radio News Team

The American Family Association of Michigan was quick to voice support Friday for Michigan’s Attorney General. Bill Schuette’s office filed a lawsuit seeking to block implementation of state health benefits for domestic partners of government employees.

AFA President Gary Glenn told WOOD Radio “we don’t think taxpayers should be forced to subsidize homosexual relationships among state employees in any economy, but when we’re in the red ink situation we are in now, it’s unconscionable.”

The benefits are scheduled to begin October 1st, for those who are represented by the United Auto Workers and the Service Employees International Union.

The state legislature had tried to reverse the Civil Service Commission decision but could not produce the two-thirds majority in the House. “We believe Attorney General Schuette and the legislature were simply acting in concert with the will of the people on this question,” Glenn said.

Schuette said the commission’s action overstepped its constitutional authority.

http://www.woodradio.com/cc-common/mainheadlines3.html?feed=125494&article=8540142
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Gov. Rick Snyder: Rick.Snyder@michigan.gov

Senate Leader Randy Richardville: SenRichardville@senate.michigan.gov

House Speaker Jase Bolger: JaseBolger@house.mi.gov

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GONGWER NEWS
Lansing, Michigan
May 6, 2011

Universities fighting social amendments

The state’s universities are hoping to see their budget come out of conference a bit lighter than it entered, at least in verbiage.

Michael Boulus, executive director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan, said the institutions are trying to have removed from the budgets language that penalizes those schools with domestic partner benefits for their employees. They also want struck language requiring reports on embryonic stem cell research and protecting religious rights of counseling students.

“It’s a historic cut at 15 percent,” Mr. Boulus said. “Then to couple it with extremely intrusive and questionably flawed social and religious beliefs … It’s a troublesome trend among many Republicans to micromanage universities.”

Mr. Boulus told Gongwer News on Friday that he was already working with legislative leadership to have the provisions removed from the final budget package, but he is also exploring other options.

“It’s not enforceable if we want to take it to court,” Mr. Boulus said of the boilerplate.

There was discussion overnight of seeking Governor Rick Snyder’s veto of the language. While Mr. Snyder has said he is still reviewing the language in the budgets, he has also said he does not approve of non-budgetary items in the budget bills.

But Mr. Boulus said he is being cautious about discussing the veto option both because he does not know where Mr. Snyder stands on the provisions and because he is not sure if vetoing the domestic partner benefits language would mean a cut to universities. The provision sets aside 5 percent of the funding for each university and gives that money to the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System if the university has a health benefits plan that covers non-married domestic partners and their dependents.

Vetoing the provision could simply remove the instructions for how to spend that 5 percent or it could remove that 5 percent from the appropriation.

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miag@michigan.gov

Family group applauds Schuette lawsuit to block taxpayer subsidy of state employees’ homosexual relationships

Calls on lawmakers to limit spousal-type benefits only to married employees, as Schuette bill attempted in 1998

LANSING, Mich. — In the face of an impending $1.8 billion deficit in the state budget, a statewide family values Friday applauded Attorney General Bill Schuette’s announced lawsuit to “protect taxpayers from being forced by the Michigan Civil Service Commission to fund yet another multi-million dollar expansion of employment benefits for government employees, the most recent driven by an obviously ideological fixation, no matter how much it costs, on forcing taxpayers to subsidize homosexual relationships that many taxpayers consider immoral and characterized by behavior that threatens both personal and public health.”

Gary Glenn, Midland, president of the American Family Association of Michigan and one of two co-authors of the Marriage Protection Amendment approved by voters in 2004, said:

“On behalf of the overwhelming majority of voters who approved Michigan’s Marriage Protection Amendment, we salute Attorney General Schuette for taking strong, decisive action to prevent a rogue state agency from recognizing and treating homosexual activity among government employees as something equal or similar to marriage. Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize government employees’ homosexual relationships under any circumstance, but at a time when the state is facing a nearly two-billion dollar deficit, forcing taxpayers to spend an additional $11 million dollars to do so is particularly unconscionable.”

“When our state is already drowning in red ink, forcing taxpayers to fund new benefits for any new group of beneficiaries — but especially a group medically proven to be at severely elevated risk of substance abuse and expensive life-threatening diseases such as AIDS, cancer, and hepatitis — is all the more unthinkable and will further increase both the state budget deficit and the cost of health care.”

He pointed to a national homosexual activist group’s embarrassing experience with the cost of its own same-sex benefits plan. According to the Washington Blade, a “gay” advocacy newspaper in the nation’s capital, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force — which is critical of employers who cite cost in refusing to offer same-sex benefits — was forced in 2003 to cut back its own same-sex benefits plan, calling it “prohibitively expensive” and unsustainable. http://www.cnsnews.com/node/5503

“When the NGLTF’s unionized staff threatened to go public with a dispute over domestic partner benefits,” the Blade reported, “(executive director Lorri) Jean called for dropping a longstanding NGLTF policy of paying 100 percent of the health insurance premium for staff members’ domestic partners, saying the benefit was prohibitively expensive…(and)…a 100 percent benefit plan for domestic partners could not be sustained, Jean said, at a time when the group had a $500,000 debt.” (Washington Blade, March 7, 2003)

Glenn, one of two co-authors of the Marriage Protection Amendment overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2004, said that because of the scientifically proven social, financial, and health benefits of marriage between a man and a woman, the state should statutorily restrict spousal-type state employment benefits exclusively to married employees as an incentive to marry.

“Every study ever done proves that traditional marriage results in increased health and financial security for both men and women, and that their children are healthier, do better in school, and are less likely as teens to use drugs, get pregnant, or commit juvenile crime, all of which reduces the cost to taxpayers for law enforcement, social welfare, and other government programs,” Glenn said.

“Getting married is also the single biggest factor in avoiding or escaping poverty,” Glenn said, citing a study published five months ago by the Heritage Foundation which found that in Michigan, children of single mothers are more than six times more likely to live in poverty than children of married parents. http://www.heritage.org/Multimedia/InfoGraphic/2010/Marriage-Poverty-Charts/Marriage-and-Poverty-in-Michigan

“Rather than force taxpayers to subsidize unmarried relationships, Michigan should as a matter of fiscal policy alone reduce the size and expense of government by doing everything possible to encourage and incentivize traditional marriage,” he said. “That includes saving money by restricting tax-funded employment benefits exclusively to state employees who are married, specifically to reward and encourage employees to get married and stay married.”

“More marriage means less government, less government spending, and less of a burden on taxpayers,” he said.

Glenn noted that a pre-election poll by the Detroit Free Press in 2004 found that a larger percentage of the state’s population opposed tax-financed same-sex benefits for government employees than supported the amendment itself, which ended up passing with nearly 60 percent of the vote. (“Gay marriage ban headed for passage,” Detroit Free Press, Oct. 2, 2004)

Glenn said that the Civil Service Commission’s approved benefits plan, by drawing the eligibility requirements for such benefits so narrowly — with the express purpose being to cover the homosexual partners of state employees, advocates of the policy said, while excluding family members such as parents and siblings — the commission’s plan may have granted legal recognition of unmarried homosexual and heterosexual relationships as being “similar to” marriage, a step the state Supreme Court ruled in 2008 is prohibited by the amendment. Attesting to its agreement with Glenn’s views as a co-author as to the amendment’s intent, the court quoted or cited AFA-Michigan’s legal brief on the issue three times in its decision in Pride at Work (AFL-CIO) v. Granholm.

“As we made clear in public statements as far back as the ballot campaign for the amendment in 2004, we believe an unrestricted benefits policy that allows a state employee to cover anyone he chooses, including family members such as parents, siblings, or grandparents, probably would be constitutional since it obviously would not be based on treating the employee’s relationship as similar to a marriage,” he said. “But that’s not what the Civil Service Commission did.”

But there’s a big distinction between the question of constitutionality and whether such a plan is good public policy, Glenn said. AFA-Michigan would oppose such an unrestricted plan, even if constitutional, because it would increase the tax burden on Michigan families even more than the Civil Service Commission’s plan. Attorneys for the University of Michigan agreed in the Pride at Work case, arguing in court that because of the cost, the university should not be compelled to broadly offer benefits to any individual an employee chooses in order to be allowed to continue covering employees’ homosexual partners.

* Even if a court finds that the Civil Service Commission plan is allowed under the Marriage Protection Amendment, that doesn’t mean the state constitution requires such benefits be offered, Glenn said. Ideally, the state should instead enact legislation such as that Schuette himself introduced over a decade ago as a member of the state Senate, restricting taxpayer-financed state employment benefits only to the spouses of married employees, with the obvious effect of statutorily prohibiting the commission’s unmarried partner benefits plan in future collective bargaining agreements with state employees. Schuette’s legislation passed the Senate in 1998 but was not brought up for consideration by the House.
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(ugn1xznd4dfojr451snwnoik))/mileg.aspx?page=getobject&objectname=1997-SB-0757&query=on

Metro Times, a Detroit newsweekly, reported in 1999: “State Sen. Bill Schuette, R-Midland, is pushing legislation prohibiting employees of state-funded entities from receiving domestic partner benefits. That legislation evolved from an earlier Schuette effort to target the extension of such benefits at Wayne State University, the University of Michigan and other institutions. The attorney general ruled that public colleges and universities could be barred from extending the benefits only if there was a law against it for all employees of entities receiving state funds. …Ginotti says the senator wants to stop the use of taxes to support benefits for unmarried partners because their bond isn’t legally recognized.” http://www2.metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=10989

The Post newspaper at Ohio University reported in 1997: “When Michigan State University became the third Michigan university in September — preceded by Wayne State University and the University of Michigan — to grant such benefits, backlash arose from a state senator. Although the decision was supported by the MSU Board of Trustees after more than two years of research and debate, state Sen. Bill Schuette, R-Midland, created a plan to penalize universities for funding benefits to partners of gay and lesbian faculty and staff by not permitting them to use state money to pay for the benefits, according to the MSU State News. Phil Ginotte, Schuette’s spokesman, said the trustees made an unwise decision — ‘a mistake’ that will ‘resonate through the state,’ according to the Sept. 15 issue of the MSU State News.” (Oct. 27, 1997) http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/archives/102797/partners.html

Glenn also dismissed arguments by homosexual activist groups and their political allies that the state must subsidize the homosexual and other unmarried partners of state employees in order to be competitive in hiring.

“Homosexual behavior is not a requirement or indicator of being among the best and brightest. The severe public health consequences alone prove that engaging in such behavior is neither the best or brightest decision, and taxpayers certainly shouldn’t be forced to pay for the medical consequences of such behavior.”

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Salute to Attorney General Schuette for taking serious action to protect Michigan taxpayers from being forced to subsidize homosexual relationships among government employees!

http://www.freep.com/article/20110506/NEWS15/110506043/Michigan-AG-Schuette-sues-block-domestic-partner-benefits-
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