“A gay rights group will not attempt a ballot initiative to amend a city ordinance to include sexual orientation and gender identity.”

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HOLLAND SENTINEL
Holland, Michigan
June 28, 2011

Holland is Ready rejects ballot move
for gay anti-discrimination initiative

by Annette Manwell

Holland — A gay rights group will not attempt a ballot initiative to amend a city ordinance to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The decision was made at a Monday meeting of the group. It comes less than two weeks after the Holland City Council denied a request by Bill Freeman, chaplain of Interfaith Congregation, to include the language in its human relations and fair housing ordinances and the equal employment opportunity policy. The council referred Freeman’s request to the city’s Human Relations Commission, which, after almost a year of study, in April recommended that the council include the terms.

A 5-4 vote on June 15 by the city council has forced groups in favor of the inclusion in other directions.

“The vote was a very close one,” the Rev. Jennifer Adams, pastor of Grace Episcopal Church in Holland and spokeswoman for Holland is Ready, wrote in an email. “It’s obvious that Holland, as a community, is moving in the direction of inclusion and equal rights for all.”

“I’m surprised by (Holland is Ready’s) decision; that’s unfortunate,” said city Councilman Brian Burch, who voted against adding the language. He said before the council vote that he was in favor of a ballot initiative.

Holland is Ready “will take the approach of furthering conversation, education and creative initiatives with businesses, local government and organizations who are also working toward enhancing diversity and inclusion,” wrote Adams.

“That’s great, there’s opportunity in that,” was Burch’s response, adding it is necessary to “build understanding for equal and individual rights.”

Until Love is Equal, another group working for equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Holland, was more divided after the Holland is Ready meeting Monday, said Drew Stoppels, lead spokesman for Until Love is Equal.

Many members of Until Love is Equal attended the meeting, he said, and remain in favor of asking Holland voters to include the language. Stoppels, however, is not, saying there is not adequate time before the election to leap all the legal hurdles.

Activists would need to draft petition and ballot language, have it approved by the city’s election commission and obtain 1,310 signatures in the next few weeks in order for the issue to be on the November ballot.

Until Love is Equal’s Facebook page has grown to 2,300 fans. The group is planning two radio shows and has launched a website since it formed, the day after the council vote.
Following the June 15 vote, Freeman said he would pursue a ballot initiative.

Freeman said Tuesday, he is undecided and has concerns about asking the majority for rights of a minority. He plans to make a final decision after meeting with Mayor Kurt Dykstra later this week.

“I am taking some time to discern what’s the best course of action,” Freeman said.

Whatever the next step, it presents an opportunity, Adams said.

“While we were disappointed with the (June 15) vote, the actual process revealed significant momentum toward establishing equality and fairness for all,” she wrote. “As Holland is Ready, we plan to continue to help reveal the vibrant, diverse, welcoming community we’re being given the opportunity to be.”

“I think there’s a spirit of inclusion in Holland,” Burch said. “We do have an amazingly diverse community. We have a lot going for us.”

http://www.hollandsentinel.com/topstories/x2069930711/Holland-is-Ready-rejects-ballot-move-for-gay-anti-discrimination-initiative
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WZZM-TV CHANNEL 13
Grand Rapids, Michigan
June 20, 2011

Attacks follow Holland’s gay rights no vote

by Steve Patterson and Jessica Puchala

HOLLAND, Mich. — Holland City Council members who voted in favor of amending an ordinance to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation are now facing an organized effort to remove them from office.

The Holland City Council defeated a proposal that would add sexual orientation to the city’s civil rights policy.

The proposed amendment was brought to the city council to protect gay citizens against discrimination. The proposal was defeated in a 5-to-4 split decision.

Since then, Michigan anti-gay rights crusader Gary Glenn has called the proposal “dangerous.”

Glenn is the President of the American Family Association and The Campaign for Michigan Families. He tells WZZM 13 News that his organization will financially help support candidates who run against any of the three council members who voted yes for the failed proposal and are involved in the city’s upcoming election.

“I think we need to lose this image that we are a little too conservative an unwelcoming,” said 2nd Ward Commissioner Jay Peters. “These kinds of things from the American Family Association only try to keep that going.”

Peters is one of the council members who voted yes and is the only among three members running for re-election who is challenged by opponents. The deadline to file was May 10. Any other challengers will have to write in. Glenn promises support.

“There’s got to be a place where Mr. Glenn has got to focus his interest and try to do some good somewhere else,” said Peters.

Meanwhile, a movement on Facebook to boycott Holland business is growing. A group called “I’m Boycotting Holland Until Love is =” now has close to 500 members.

“It’s a knee-jerk reaction,” said Business Owner Bob Schulze.

Schulze owns Globe Vision in downtown, Holland. He calls the movement shortsighted and ironic, saying that he and many area business owners supported the measure.

“I’m not that upset and I’m really not that nervous,” he said. “I think they will see that they probably don’t want to hurt the businesses that are for the issue.”

http://www.wzzm13.com/news/article/169424/2/Attacks-follow-Hollands-gay-rights-no-vote
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GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
Grand Rapids, Michigan
June 18, 2011

Michigan anti-bullying legislation advocates
disagree over language in stalled bill

by Charley Honey

Those concerned about bullying agree schools need policies to discourage it. What they can’t agree on is what those policies should say.

State legislation requiring public schools to have such policies has yet to be adopted in Lansing after 10 years of pushing by advocates. The State Board of Education in 2001 asked districts to adopt policies and issued a model policy in 2006. Michigan is one of only five states without such laws, Gov. Rick Snyder pointed out in urging passage of a bill.

“One of the reasons this bill’s been stalled for so long is we have adults saying ‘This is what we want,’ not ‘This is what our kids need,’” said Kevin Epling, co-director of Bully Police USA, whose son, Matt, committed suicide in 2002.

A bill calling itself “Matt’s Safe School Law” awaits a vote in the Senate. It requires public school districts to adopt anti-bullying policies and submit them to the state. It does not apply to private schools.

Epling calls it a “much reduced version” of the originally proposed Matt’s law and hopes it is strengthened. It does not include language, as does another proposed bill, that specifies a student’s real or perceived race, religion and sexual orientation in its definition of bullying.

The American Family Association has objected to that language as “a Trojan horse for homosexual activists’ political agenda.”
Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, the bill’s sponsor, says such “enumeration” language isn’t needed.

“I think a child shouldn’t be bullied, whether they be gay or obese or have red hair,” said Jones, whose district includes Barry and Allegan counties. “If we start having enumerations in there, we could be back every six months putting in a new classification.”

Religious schools keep pace

Local Christian and Catholic schools have their own policies but are keeping an eye on the state legislation.

“Our Student Dignity Policy has been adequate for us in the past, but with a new policy coming from the state, we should
probably take a look at that,” said Dave Faber, superintendent of Catholic schools.

The Catholic secondary schools’ policy prohibits sexual and racial harassment, including threats, name-calling and posting “harmful information on the Internet.”

“The Gospel doesn’t just call us to tolerance of one another, it calls us to love one another,” Faber said. “That’s what we’re bringing to students.”

Policy revision

The Grand Rapids Christian Schools board Monday is slated to approve revisions to its policy on bullying. The policy includes consequences but also ways to reconcile those who bully back into the school community, Superintendent Tom DeJonge said.

“We talk about how students are to be treated in love, whether they’re the guilty party or not,” DeJonge said, “and that, in Christ, we provide supports and resources for those that have been harmed as well as those doing the harming.

“It doesn’t mean there’s not punishment, but it’s also about rebuilding a community that’s been broken.”

http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/06/michigan_anti-bullying_legisla.html
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Polpourri

Anti-gay rights activist Gary Glenn poo-
poos suggestion for Holland ballot issue

After Holland City Council refused to add sexual orientation to the city’s anti-discrimination ordinances by a 5-4 vote last week, some suggested the question be put to Holland residents. Anti-gay rights activist Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, said such a ballot issue would fare no better than same-sex marriage did in Holland during a 2004 statewide referendum.

“It will be soundly rejected … in a community that voted 64 percent in favor of the Marriage Protection Amendment,” Glenn said.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/06/polpourri_for_june_19_anti-gay.html
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Supporters of expanding the ordinance are planning to launch a petition drive to get the proposal on the ballot, but Glenn predicted any such proposal would fail, given that 64 percent of city voters voted in favor of the Marriage Protection Amendment when it was on the 2004 ballot. ‘Holland voters are not going to endorse a homosexual agenda,’ he said.”

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GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
Grand Rapids, Michigan
June 18, 2011

‘Pro-family’ group aims to unseat Holland council
members who support anti-discrimination vote

by Greg Chandler / The Grand Rapids Press

HOLLAND, Mich. – A statewide “pro-family” political action committee wants to target three Holland City Council members who voted in favor of expanding the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Campaign for Michigan Families, which is affiliated with the Michigan chapter of the American Family Association, hopes to support candidates to run against Mayor Pro Tem Bob Vande Vusse and Councilmen Jay Peters and David Hoekstra in re-election bids this fall.

The three were part of the minority in the council’s 5-4 vote Wednesday night that rejected expanding the anti-discrimination ordinance.

But Peters, who has been on the council since 2007, is the only candidate of the three currently facing a re-election challenge. He faces an August primary race that includes former Councilman Victor Oroczo and Planning Commissioner Jerry Tonini.

Vande Vusse and Hoekstra did not have any opponents file to run against them by the May 10 filing deadline. Any potential opponents would have to run as write-in candidates.

“It’s their right,” Vande Vusse said of the ouster effort. “I will stand on my record of 20 years (that I’ve been on the council). I trust the judgment of the people of Holland and the people of the Fourth Ward who have given me the opportunity to represent them for the past 20 years.”

The lack of challengers isn’t deterring campaign chairman Gary Glenn, who urged “pro-family” candidates to consider running against the three incumbents, saying it would offer funding support.
“Given the serious threat these discriminatory gay rights ordinances have proven to pose to religious freedom in other communities, pro-family residents of Holland can’t afford the risk that a single council member might be replaced or pressured to change his vote and allow such a dangerous policy to become law,” Glenn said in a prepared statement.

“To prevent that, our PAC will financially and otherwise assist candidates who file to run against the three council members this fall who tried to impose homosexual activists’ political agenda on city residents.”

The proposed ordinance change had included a provision exempting religious organizations, their educational programs, and institutions that address housing, employment, education and other services. That didn’t keep many opponents from stating their opposition on moral grounds. Glenn, however, says that provision was narrowly written and that the ordinance would prevent “individual citizens from exercising their religious freedom.”

Hoekstra has been a council member since 2003. Neither Peters nor Hoekstra could be reached for comment Saturday.

The fourth council member who voted in favor of expanding the ordinance, At-large Councilman Shawn Miller, is not running for election to the seat he was appointed to last month.

Supporters of expanding the ordinance are planning to launch a petition drive to get the proposal on the ballot, but Glenn predicted any such proposal would fail, given that 64 percent of city voters voted in favor of the Marriage Protection Amendment when it was on the 2004 ballot.

“Holland voters are not going to endorse a homosexual agenda,” he said.

The announcement of the statewide campaign comes a day after a group supporting expanding the anti-discrimination ordinance launched a Facebook page calling for a boycott of the city in protest of the council vote. As of Saturday afternoon, that group had close to 240 members.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/06/pro-family_group_aims_to_unsea.html
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WOOD RADIO
Grand Rapids, Michigan
June 17, 2011

Pro-Family Group Gets Into Holland Gay Rights Fight

Campaign For Michigan Families Chairman Gary Glenn says this week’s
vote on a gay rights ordinance in Holland was too close for comfort.

by Rod Kackley, Paul Cicchini
WOOD Radio News Team

A statewide political action committee that backs candidates who support “traditional family values” is urging pro-family supporters in Holland to run against the three city council members, facing re-election in November, who voted in favor of a gay rights ordinance.

That proposal was defeated by only one vote, a margin that Campaign For Michigan Families Chairman Gary Glenn said was “too close for comfort.”

He is targeting Holland City Council members David Hoekstra, Jay Peters and Robert Vande Vusse. He accused them of trying to “impose a homosexual activists’ political agenda on (Holland) city residents.”

Glenn also said that gay rights ordinances are a threat to the religious freedom.

“To prevent that, our PAC will financially…assist candidates who file to run against these three city council members,” he said in a statement released Friday.

Dave Hoekstra, Holland’s 6th Ward Councilman,  told WOOD Radio he didn’t even know Glenn was coming after him, again.

Hoekstra says about a year ago, the two men exhanged e-mails.

“In which he pretty clearly indicated that if I didn’t vote in a particular way that I might face some political consequences,” said Hoekstra.

Hoekstra says his main concern was enhancing Holland as a welcoming community. He says any steps that have been achieved in realizing civil liberties and justice haven’t come easily.

“And we keep talking about, and we make statements about the fact that we as a people value justice and we just have to make sure that our walk is matching our talk,” said Hoekstra.

http://www.woodradio.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=125494&article=8721802
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HOLLAND SENTINEL
Holland, Michigan
June 16, 2011

Human rights resolution denied,
ballot measure possible

By Annette Manwell

Holland, MI — Even though the Holland City Council voted against a human rights resolution Wednesday, the issue could find its way to the November ballot.

The details have not been worked out, but petitions are likely to be circulated looking for support of adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the city of Holland’s Human Relations and Fair Housing ordinances and equal employment opportunity policy.

“I think we have to go for a referendum,” said Bill Freeman, chaplain of Interfaith Congregation, who brought the issue to the Holland City Council more than a year ago.

A split council shot down the request Wednesday 5-4 after more than four hours of comments from the public and many prepared statements from council members. It was nearly midnight when the decision was made, but people passionate about the issue endured to hear the vote.

What was on the table Wednesday was only a resolution asking city attorneys to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the city’s human rights ordinances and policies, on which the council would then have to vote.

“The ballot measure was council’s idea,” said the Rev. Jennifer Adams from Grace Episcopal Church in Holland and a member of Holland is Ready, adding, “I think it would have a good shot.”

“It’s unfortunate,” Freeman said. “I don’t think you should ask the majority for the rights of the minority.”

Members of Holland is Ready, a group of concerned people working for rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, are absorbing the council decision and have not considered what to do next, Adams said.

The mood outside council chambers after the meeting was disappointment and “surprised by the experience,” considering most of the comments to council were in favor of the resolution, she said.

“We were all just shocked that they didn’t let the process go through,” Freeman said of the mood after the vote. “To let it go through would have shown some respect to the Human Relations Commission that spent months studying the issues.”

Approving the resolution was not approving the ordinance amendment, he said.

“It’s not over, because the issues is not going away, the people aren’t going away,” Adams said.

The resolution brought attention from around the world. Council members said they received emails and letters from people in other countries as well as around the state and nation.

People who spoke Wednesday suggested Holland had the opportunity to make a strong statement about human rights. Freeman agreed, saying the vote would have been noticed around the country and a unanimous vote would have had “great impact.”

“I think Holland is better than the 5-4 vote,” he said.

Decisions made by a local government do have an effect, Adams said. “That’s why there is local government. It’s a critical dimension of long-term change.

“I think our council missed an opportunity.”

Supporters face many steps
to get ordinance on ballot

Launching a ballot initiative to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the city’s human rights ordinances is not a simple task.

First, proponents need to draft a proposed ordinance as well as specific language for the petition, Holland City Attorney Andy Mulder said. The city attorney’s office must decide whether the language fits required forms.

After language is approved, proponents need 1,310 signatures — 15 percent of Holland’s voter turnout in the last gubernatorial election.

The city clerk’s office would have 10 days to verify all the signatures.

Then, the city council would have 30 days to either adopt the proposed ordinance or put it on the ballot. (By the way, the city council isn’t allowed to initiate a ballot initiative.)

If all that is completed and submitted to the county before Aug. 16, the initiative can be on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Finally, if voters approve the ballot initiative, the city council cannot change it in any way for two years.

http://www.hollandsentinel.com/feature/x536831629/Human-rights-resolution-denied-ballot-measure-possible
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WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT
Washington, D.C.
June 16, 2011

Holland, Mich. city council rejects legislation prohibiting
Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender discrimination

by Todd A. Heywood

HOLLAND, Mich. — The Holland City Council has rejected legislation which would have prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.

WWMT reports the meeting went until nearly midnight, and resulted in a 5 to 4 vote. Nearly 200 people packed the city’s council chambers to express their opinions on the legislation.

Holland has come under continuing pressure on this issue over the last couple of years. Oscar winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black was in the area shooting a film, and was invited to the campus of Hope College, a private higher education institution.

However, the invitation was rescinded when Black was told he could not talk about gay rights. This move led Black and others to create an outside event to discuss LGBT issues in the conservative town. It also led to the formation of a group of Hope graduates who lobbied the college to change its policies on homosexuality, which the college has declined to do.

Black won the Oscar for his screenplay Milk, which told the story of gay icon Harvey Milk. Milk, along with San Francisco Mayor George Mascone, were murdered by former supervisor Dan White. Milk was widely recognized as the first openly gay person to hold a political position in a large city in the United States.

The action drew the praise of the anti-gay American Family Association of Michigan. Gary Glenn, president of the group, had this to say in a press release:

“Mayor Dykstra and the city council were right to have the courage to reject demands by homosexual activists and their allies for this discriminatory ordinance,” Glenn said. “In other cities and states, these so-called ‘sexual orientation’ laws have proven to themselves be discriminatory, being used to discriminate against and punish individual Christians, strip churches of their tax-exempt status, punish Christian business owners, and discriminate against and violate the civil rights and religious freedom of cherished community groups such as the Boy Scouts, Salvation Army, and Catholic Charities who refuse to endanger children by endorsing homosexual activists’ political agenda.”

http://washingtonindependent.com/111218/holland-mich-city-council-rejects-legislation-prohibiting-lgbt-discrimination-updated
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HOLLAND SENTINEL
Holland, Michigan
June 16, 2011

Sexual orientation equal rights amendment
fails on split vote in Holland

By ANNETTE MANWELL

Holland, MI — “The motion fails, five to four.”

The statement by Holland’s Acting Deputy City Clerk Anna Perales was followed by sighs and groans of people in the crowded chambers of the Holland City Council. A recommendation from the city’s Human Relations Commission to include sexual orientation and gender identity in the city’s human rights ordinances failed to gain the support needed to become an amendment.

After hours of resident and council comments, the vote was 5-4. No votes came from Mayor Kurt Dykstra, Todd Whiteman, Nancy De Boer, Myron Trethewey, and Brian Burch. Yes votes came from Jay Peters, Dave Hoekstra, Shawn Miller and Bob VandeVusse.

Many members of council spoke from prepared statements. Burch and Trethewey were adamant that a vote from nine people was not going to change the attitudes and opinions of the people living in the city and that a vote of the people would make a stronger statement.

Some who spoke during the public comment portion of Wednesday’s city council meeting suggested that the council would be making a strong statement of acceptance if it passed the resolution.

In the time he’s been council he has not been asked to enact a law in order to “make a statement,” Dykstra said.

Bill Freeman, chaplain of Interfaith Congregation, who first asked for the inclusion of the statements more than a year ago, said he would start a drive to get the issue on the ballot.

For more than two and a half hours people opposed and supportive of adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the city of Holland’s civil rights ordinances and policies spoke to the City Council.

Some were teary-eyed. Some spoke louder than others. Many all but begged the city council to stop the flight of young people from the city.

Family members of people who are gay told the council that their loved ones left because Holland is not a welcoming community.

“Holland is not an accepting community,” said Holland resident Greg Lamb. “It’s not a progressive community.”

Lamb said his daughter came home from a walk in Centennial Park one day after someone from a car driving down River Avenue called her “dyke.” She left because she’s not accepted here, he said.

Several people said it’s not the fact that a family member is gay that has torn their family apart — it’s the fact that loved one left because Holland is not accepting.

“Now I’m lucky if I see (my sister) a few times a year,” Jamie Coon, of Hamilton said.

“It’s not like passing this thing is going to increase the percentage of gay people in Holland,” Lamb said.

Only a few people spoke up and said, “I am gay.” But many people said “my son,” “my daughter,” “my friends,” “my brother” or “my sister is gay.”

Still others tried to reason with the council on economics and said property values will go up if people feel welcome in the community and choose to stay and live and spend money in the city.

Those opposed cited religious reasons, the concern that the ordinance will take away rights of property and business owners, that homosexuality is immoral or that it is not a protected class and maintained that homosexuality is a choice, not a trait a person is born with like being black, Hispanic or a woman.

Barbara Laman Coon countered the argument of landlords losing rights with “I don’t think that discrimination should be anyone’s right.”

http://www.hollandsentinel.com/feature/x536828333/Long-public-forum-on-equal-rights-delays-decision
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“Rev. Ralph Houston, Pastor of Immanuel Reformed Church in Fennville, was against putting anti-gay bias in city ordinances. ‘This is a way to get acceptance to immoral acts by approval through law,’ said Houston, who claimed studies showed homosexuality was a lifestyle choice that could be cured by treatment. …Holland resident Laura Anderson said she felt she was being discriminated against by the intent of the ordinance. ‘It takes away my rights. By its wording, this resolution gives heavier weight to gay rights over my rights and I’m offended by it,’ Anderson said.”

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GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
Grand Rapids, Michigan
June 16, 2011

Holland votes against adding sexual
orientation to anti-discrimination policies

by Myron Kukla, The Grand Rapids Press

HOLLAND — By a one-vote margin after a long and sometimes emotional meeting, Holland City Council on Wednesday vetoed adding sexual orientation to its anti-discrimination ordinances covering housing and jobs.

“I feel it was the wrong thing to do. I believe they just sent a message to the business world that Holland is not an inclusive community that welcomes diversity,” said Ken Freestone, a Holland businessman, who listened to more than five hours of comment and council discussion before the group’s 5-4 vote.

Voting against the change were Mayor Kurt Dykstra and council members Brian Burch, Nancy DeBoer, Mike Tretheway and Todd Whiteman.
In favor of the change were council members David Hoekstra, Jay Peters, Robert Vande Vusse and Shawn Miller.
DeBoer and Whiteman said they would prefer to see a city-wide vote on adding sexual orientation to the list of groups covered in the anti-discrimination ordinances.

Freestone was skeptical such a vote would ever happen. An audible sigh of resignation came from the audience when the final vote was heard. An overflow crowd of 250 crammed the City Council chambers and its hallways. More than 60 people spoke to the issue, with their allegiances fairly evenly split. “I have gay friends and always have had gay friends. They provide the spice of life. This is not a choice issue as has been suggested tonight. It’s a DNA thing,” said Second Ward Councilman Jay Peters.

Some critics of the added language claimed outside influences were pushing a “gay agenda” in Holland, while others countered that support for the proposal came from locals, business owners and “residents being discriminated against” who favored the change.

Others took a more personal view.

Jamie Coon said her sister, Coco Lam, left Holland and moved to Oregon because of discrimination she received for being a lesbian.
“She moved away to live in peace with her partner and two children,” said Coon, 19, a Holland High School graduate and Central Michigan University student. “If you approve this anti-discrimination ordinance (for sexual orientation), it won’t bring my sister back, but it may keep someone else’s sister from leaving.”

The proposal would have added sexual orientation to Holland’s fair housing ordinance and Equal Opportunity policy. They already cover discrimination based on gender, race, creed, age and disabilities.

Of those who spoke out on the issue, nearly 20 percent were area ministers. Rev. Ralph Houston, Pastor of Immanuel Reformed Church in Fennville, was against putting anti-gay bias in city ordinances. “This is a way to get acceptance to immoral acts by approval through law,” said Houston, who claimed studies showed homosexuality was a lifestyle choice that could be cured by treatment.

Other area church leaders supported the proposed change.

“Be sure you consider this as a human rights issue, not a religious issue. This is not a matter of morality,” said the Rev. Linda Knieriemen, minister of the First Presbyterian of Holland. Rev. Larry Schuyler of the Holland Classis of the Reformed Church in America said the position of the church is that “the denial of human and civil rights based on sexual identity is inconsistent with reformed theology.”

But Holland resident Laura Anderson said she felt she was being discriminated against by the intent of the ordinance. “It takes away my rights. By its wording, this resolution gives heavier weight to gay rights over my rights and I’m offended by it,” Anderson said.

Several speakers said what city council was doing was “encouraging homosexual lifestyles,” while others noted that “the resolution will not force churches to perform same-sex marriages.”

City Human Relations Coordinator Al Serrano said the Human Relations Commission studied the recommendation for a year and made the recommendation in part on a Fair Housing study found that discrimination against same-sex partners increased by nearly 30 percent in communities without discrimination ordinances.

Business owner Dean Whittaker said the council should consider what its decision will mean economically.

“We want to attract and keep diverse talent to our community and companies and a community suffers when we force people to leave,” said Whittaker.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/06/holland_votes_against_adding_s.html
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* AFA-Michigan took responsibility for providing leadership on the issue, being the first organization (and a thereafter unrelenting voice) to publicly call for passage of a Marriage Protection Amendment to Michigan’s state constitution. Starting in June 2003 the day an Ontario, Canada court declared so-called homosexual “marriage” legal right across the bridge from Detroit, Port Huron, and Sault Ste. Marie.

* AFA-Michigan President Gary Glenn and Ave Maria University Law School Professor Pat Gillen co-authored the actual language of Michigan’s amendment, now used as a model for other states’ marriage amendments.

* AFA-Michigan’s Glenn was one of the primary public and media spokespersons statewide throughout the seven-month month petition drive and ballot campaign in support of the amendment, which was approved by nearly 60 percent of Michigan voters in November 2004.

* After voter approval, Glenn was asked to help coach and prepare the trial attorneys of Attorney General Mike Cox’s office who successfully defended the Marriage Protection Amendment before the Michigan Supreme Court.

* The Supreme Court quoted or cited AFA-Michigan’s arguments three times in its 5-to-2 decision upholding the Marriage Protection Amendment and its full enforcement.

* An even more recent poll than the one cited in the article below showed just how broad support for Michigan’s amendment is. According to a September 2009 poll by Lansing Democratic pollster Mark Grebner, 90 percent of Republicans, 60 percent of independents, and half of all Democrats in Michigan said they would vote against a ballot measure seeking to repeal the amendment.

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____________________________________________________

“Michigan’s constitutional (Marriage Protection Amendment) amendment forbids the recognition of same-sex marriages ‘as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.’ …’One of the worst in the country’ — that’s how Tobias Barrington Wolff, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, described Michigan’s anti-gay-marriage amendment. Wolff was chief adviser and spokesman for Barack Obama on Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender issues during the 2007-08 campaign. …Super-DOMAs like Michigan’s or Virginia’s ban all forms of recognition for same-sex relationships.

When looking at Michigan, (City University of New York political science professor Daniel) Pinello concluded that one development was the most significant of all. The first and only time a state Supreme Court brought the super-DOMA hammer down on lesbian and gay couples was in National Pride at Work, Inc. v. Governor of Michigan (2008), where the court interpreted the words ‘or similar union for any purpose’ of Proposal 2 to bar health insurance benefits for same-sex partners of state employees. Pinello called it ‘the clearest example of an actual, tangible, statewide loss for gay and lesbian couples’ in the nation based on a super-DOMA.

‘They were wily,’ Pinello said of Proposal 2’s Michigan backers. ‘They intended to immortalize the opinion of the day into the future.’”

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CITY PULSE
Lansing, Michigan
June 8, 2011

State of tarnished pride

Despite cultural and social gains, Proposal
2 makes Michigan a difficult place to live

by Lawrence Cosentino

In 2000, Michael Falk came to Ann Arbor with his partner, Matthew, to begin a promising career in materials science. He was 31 years old. By 2002, Falk’s teaching and research at the University of Michigan earned him an Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation.
The prize goes to young scientists who show they are likely to “build a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research.” Falk got another award, for excellence in teaching, in 2005.

Falk works with the tiniest bits of semiconductor crystals and other nano-stuff that’s crucial to cutting-edge computer technology. He studies how these substances fail under high temperature. Everything has a breaking point.

Last year, thanks to Michigan’s 2004 anti-gay constitutional amendment and its ongoing legislative and legal fallout, Falk moved to Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University to build his “lifetime of leadership” in another state. He and his partner were married in Washington last summer.

“It just felt like we were under attack,” Falk said. “It made us reconsider our long-term desire to make Michigan our home.”

Despite a dramatic rise in public acceptance of gay and lesbian rights among a wider public, Proposal 2 and its chain reactions continue to make Michigan radioactive for much of the LGBT community.

Michigan’s constitutional amendment forbids the recognition of same-sex marriages “as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.”

No matter how fast gays and lesbians gain social or cultural acceptance, no matter how many local human rights ordinances are passed, no matter how many shows of support come from this or that straight institution, Proposal 2 hangs like a sword of Damocles over the LBGT community, making Michigan seem like a hostile environment.

“One of the worst in the country” — that’s how Tobias Barrington Wolff, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, described Michigan’s anti-gay-marriage amendment. Wolff was chief adviser and spokesman for Barack Obama on LGBT issues during the 2007-08 campaign.

“It just seems like a gratuitous effort to punish and be cruel toward three or four hundred thousand Michigan citizens,” Wolff said. “It makes it harder for them to find the person they’re going to share their life with, make a happy and successful home together and contribute to a larger community.”

The stories drip from Lansing, week by week. When state universities tried to find another way to extend benefits to same-sex couples, legislators moved to cut their state funding by an extra 5 percent. When the Civil Service Commission voted to extend the benefits to state employees, the attorney general sued to stop them. Thanks to Proposal 2, these countermoves and others like them can fly under color of “the law of the land” and “the will of the people.” But the political headlines don’t begin to describe how Proposal 2 has affected life in Michigan, not just for gays and lesbians, but for everyone.

Attack of the super-DOMA

A New York researcher has begun the first systematic study on how constitutional amendments like Michigan’s affect individual lives. Daniel Pinello, a professor of political science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, has a name for amendments like Michigan’s. He calls them “super-DOMAs,” after the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

In Pinello’s lingo, “mini-DOMAs,” like California’s famous Proposition 8 or Oregon’s Measure 36, only limit marriage to one man and one woman. Super-DOMAs like Michigan’s or Virginia’s ban all forms of recognition for same-sex relationships.

Wolff calls them “desperate attempts to amend state constitutions to turn gay people into second-class citizens.” The broad language of super-DOMAs gave birth to an unpredictable, hydra-headed legal monster in Michigan.

Pinello is working on a book about the national flare-up of anti-gay constitutional amendments and its consequences. He has released a preliminary study focusing on four or the 19 states with super-DOMAs, including Michigan. For the study, he interviewed 23 same-sex couples in Michigan (75 couples in all).

Pinello kept the names confidential, but he found the tentacles of Proposal 2 extending into unexpected corners of LGBT lives.

He found direct consequences even before came here to do research in 2009. By coincidence, one of his colleagues at CUNY went to law school in Michigan with her lesbian partner. In 2004, shortly after Proposition 2 passed, the woman was offered a position at the University of Michigan.

“This couple agonized for a couple of weeks,” Pinello said. Had they moved, they would have been reunited with a large extended family and enjoyed a drastically lower cost of living.

But the couple didn’t return to Michigan.

“They told me they just couldn’t do it, given the legal environment,” Pinello said.

While doing research in Michigan, Pinello talked to a tenured professor at Oakland University, 15 years older than her partner, who had to back out of buying a “perfect house” near campus. The house was in an area reserved for Oakland University staff and spouses. If the professor died, she was told, her partner would have to leave the house.

Pinello also interviewed an heiress living in a northern suburb of Detroit. The heiress’s grandparents set up a trust that left a large estate to her, her two brothers and their “legal spouses.”

The heiress and her lesbian partner have been together for 20 years, but if she dies, her partner would get nothing while her brothers’ wives would have full shares.

“There’s nothing they can do to get the partner recognized,” Pinello said.

To make the case more perverse, the brothers and their wives offered to welcome their sister’s partner into the family in some official way, but the trustee refused to hear them.

Pinello also talked with a student at the University of Michigan medical school who had tried to persuade a friend, a top hospital administrator in New England, to apply for a similar job at U. of M.

The friend, a lesbian, wouldn’t consider applying for the position, given the legal status of gays and lesbians in Michigan.

Pinello said he has only found the tip of the iceberg. He pointed out that his respondents, found via the Gay Yellow Pages, were relatively well heeled and educated.

“I didn’t have access to the most heart-rending stories, which are going on out in the hinterlands,” he said. “People are schoolteachers and can’t get health insurance for their partners, they’re raising children and they’re frightened to talk to anyone. The more telling stories are probably invisible.”

When looking at Michigan, Pinello concluded that one development was the most significant of all.

The first, and only, time a state Supreme Court brought the super-DOMA hammer down on lesbian and gay couples was in National Pride at Work, Inc. v. Governor of Michigan (2008), where the court interpreted the words “or similar union for any purpose” of Proposal 2 to bar health insurance benefits for same-sex partners of state employees.

Pinello called it “the clearest example of an actual, tangible, statewide loss for gay and lesbian couples” in the nation based on a super-DOMA.

But there were also intangible losses, harder to quantify but no less damaging.

“The effects of Super-DOMAs on same-sex couples, revealed time and again in interviews, are fear and depression,” Pinello said.

There are many painful questions gays and lesbians must ask themselves if they live in Michigan. Will we end up in separate nursing homes? Will a biological son or daughter assert legally recognized rights and contest a document? Will I be able to visit a loved one in the hospital?

Same-sex pairs in Michigan repeatedly told Pinello they would be fearful to be hospitalized anywhere in the state except Ann Arbor.

Only 28 percent of the couples Pinello interviewed felt confident their legal papers (wills, living wills, durable powers of attorney, health care proxies, etc.) would be honored when the time came, especially if they met with illness or accident away from home.

Penny Gardner, president of Lansing Association for Human Rights, is familiar with these fears.

Gardner doesn’t care much about marriage (“it’s patriarchal and Christian and phhhhh”) but cares about the legal and civic recognition it would bring.

“I’m virtually married to my partner, Marilyn, for 15 years, but she has no legal standing,” Gardner said. “”My kids do. They’re fine kids, but who’s to know?”

Buyer’s remorse

The irony of Proposal 2 is that Michigan’s electorate may already be feeling remorse for the full-body, gay-bashing tattoo it impulsively bought in 2004.

Poll numbers are shifting fast, especially for a hot-button social issue. When the Glengariff Group conducted a random survey of registered Michigan voters in June 2009, pollsters found a “seismic shift among Michigan voters on the issue of gay marriage and civil unions” since October 2004. Support for civil unions went from 42 percent to 63.7 percent, a 52 percent increase. Support for gay marriage went from 24 to 46.5 percent, a 94 percent increase.

In a milestone CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Tuesday, April 19, 51 percent said they think marriages between lesbians and gay couples should be recognized as legal, up from 44 percent in 2009. For the first time in history, support for gay marriage punched into the majority in a national poll.

“Every day it becomes more and more apparent that [Proposal 2] is out of step with majority sentiment around the country and, I think, in the state of Michigan,” Wolff said.

“The more hostile opinion of six years ago, memorialized in Proposal 2, appears to control how gay and lesbian couples are treated there now,” Pinello said.

Democratic action via constitutional amendments is a novelty in the United States. Legislatures can repeal laws, but it’s much more cumbersome process to change a state constitution.

“They were wily,” Pinello said of Proposal 2’s Michigan backers. “They intended to immortalize the opinion of the day into the future.”

Removing the tattoo will probably be a long and painful operation.

Pinello isn’t rushing his book. He’s confident history will not leap forward and make his work moot anytime soon.

“I don’t see things improving for a long, long time,” Pinello said. “If there’s any salvation, it will come from the U.S. Supreme Court. Barring that, it’s unlikely that there will be the political will to repeal these awful amendments.”

Wolff said it would either take “a mobilized effort by state legislatures and the people, or action by the federal courts.” Nevertheless, when Pinello asked gay and lesbian couples if they have thought of moving out of the Michigan, he was amazed at the answers.

“Most of them have not,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘I was born and raised a Michigander, I’ll stay here and fight.’”

Pinello wasn’t shy about comparing what he heard to rationales offered by Jews who didn’t leave Germany in the 1930s.

“There were all these signs of increasing hostility, but people were saying very similar things,” Pinello said. “‘I’m as German as Hitler.’ ‘It’s a passing thing.’ ‘I’m going to stay and fight.’ ‘Things will get better.’”

You won’t get any Weimar Germany delusions from Dennis Hall, a retired State of Michigan worker who lives in Lansing. Hall has trouble buying the argument that a small group of rabid legislators are to blame for Proposal 2 and its fallout.

“If people of Michigan were really tolerant, they wouldn’t be voting for these people they keep putting in office,” he said. “It’s a frustrating feeling to be gay and living in Michigan, to be honest. I really don’t feel comfortable in this state anymore.”

The rain of legal and legislative blows, large and small, takes a toll. Hall was aghast at a measure proposed in April to require universities that have accredited counseling programs to report to the state Legislature on how students’ religious beliefs are accommodated. The measure was proposed when an Eastern Michigan University counselor was fired after refusing to counsel a gay student. Michigan’s attorney general, Bill Schuette, filed a brief in support of the fired counselor.

Hall is angry that lawmakers would busy themselves with inserting such a provision when LGBT rights are actively suppressed across the board.

“When are they going to put something in the boilerplate that says something positive about us?” Hall said.

Hall said he’s had it. As soon as his partner retires, he’s leaving the state.

“I’ve been all around the country, and Michigan is the most beautiful state in the United States, but I would leave it in a heartbeat,” he said.

When fear penetrates Michigan that deeply, the whole state suffers incalculable loss.

“The 50 states are a marketplace, and talent that is mobile will take that into account,” Pinello said.

When Michael Falk left Ann Arbor last year, the University of Michigan lost more than a promising scientist. Falk walked away from a start-up package of computer and lab equipment, customized to his research needs, worth about $300,000.

“They support you when you’re an assistant professor while you’re getting up to speed as an academic,” he said. “It’s obviously better for the university if you stay on and spend your most productive years in this institution that’s made a big investment in you.”

Falk stays in touch with friends in Ann Arbor who were relieved when the University of Michigan offered “other qualified adult” benefits, but he’s glad he moved to Baltimore.

“To us, it looked like a patch, until that gets challenged, and then what happens?” Falk asked. Watching the situation from afar, he was not surprised to learn that the Michigan legislature came close to penalizing universities that still offer benefits to same-sex couples by cutting funding an extra 5 percent.

Proposal 2 gave legislators like State Rep. Dave Agema the constitutional cover to claim that universities who offered benefits to same-sex couples were putting themselves “above the law and the will of the people.”

Michigan’s Civil Service Commission voted to extend benefits to same-sex partners of state employees in January 2011.The state’s Legislature fell short in an effort to overturn the ruling, but Schuette has sued to stop the benefits, Gov. Rick Snyder has warned that the state can’t afford them, and some Republican legislators, outraged by the Civil Service Commission’s ruling, want to abolish the commission altogether.

“This is not the end of story,” Falk said. “We’re very concerned for our friends in Michigan. Some are couples with kids. The parent who’s taking care of the children is the one whose benefits depends on the university.”

A bill recognizing same-sex marriage narrowly missed passage in the Maryland legislature this spring, but Falk is hopeful it will go through in the near future.

“It’s good to be in a place where things are moving in the right direction,” Falk said.

http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/lansing/article-5957-state-of-tarnished-pride.html
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Below is an example of our AFA-Michigan News Minute, a 60-second audio news feed we recently began providing five days a week to radio stations across the state. Right now, three Christian radio stations (Flint, Lansing, and Zeeland) and one news-talk station (Grand Rapids) are airing these daily free of charge.

Click here to listen: AFA-Michigan News Minute Example

I’m writing to ask your help in one of two ways:

1. Please call your local radio station(s) and ask them to start accepting and airing the AFA-Michigan News Minute.

2. If you’re willing to volunteer for a larger project, we need volunteers who will help call all radio stations statewide to make the same request.

Airing AFA-Michigan’s News Minutes on as many stations as possible will broaden the reach of our message and thus our ability to effectively promote the traditional family values we share.

Thanks for your consideration and, hopefully, your help.

God bless and keep you strong…

Gary Glenn, President
American Family Association of Michigan
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President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s prayer
broadcast nationwide on June 6, 1944, asking
the blessings of Almighty God on behalf of
American troops’ D-Day landing on the
Normandy beaches of France…

Click to listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAUDj6yQx9U

As we remember the 67th anniversary of the day
that began the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny,
the American Family Association of Michigan urges you
to join us in offering this same prayer for the men and women
who serve our country today in harm’s way — once again
fighting “to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization.”

Let us also pray that the day will soon come again, that the President of
the United States does not hesitate — in times of peace and of war, in crisis or
in thanksgiving — to publicly lead the American people in reverent and
humble prayer for God’s blessings upon our Nation and its freedom.

As President Roosevelt prayed: “Thy will be done, Almighty God.”

Gary Glenn, President
American Family Association of Michigan
www.AFAMichigan.org
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