The clever and — you have to give this to them, tactically and strategically brilliant — proponents of Amendment 2 spent hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars in the months leading up to the election insisting that the amendment was all about “protecting marriage.”
On the rare (very rare) occasions when the media called them on their inconsistencies, the proponents would redouble their efforts to obscure their true designs.
Gary Glenn, the head of the American Family Association of Michigan, had the absolute audacity to write in a letter to the Detroit Free Press on November 8 that
Every citizen has equal protection under Michigan’s marriage laws, and equal access. Any person can get married, which by definition means to someone of the opposite sex. There is nothing discriminatory or unequal about that.
No, there’s nothing discriminatory or unequal about that, unless you’re homosexual, in which case you can take “equal access” and stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine.
The governor and her chief employment officer abruptly decided on Wednesday to remove a negotiated same-sex partner benefit package from contracts with the state’s five public employee unions because of fear of litigation. This is just the beginning. The Michigan Daily had an article in today’s edition that makes it clear that right-wing legal advocacy groups are chomping at the bit to take the University of Michigan to court to force it to stop providing same-sex benefits to its employees. The University says it will vigorously defend its right to continue providing those benefits, which is fine and good, but we’ll see if that holds up once the lawsuits actually go forward.
I’ve talked to at least two local people in the past week or so who were shocked to find out that Amendment 2 is a Trojan horse for eliminating same-sex partnership benefits from all Michigan public institutions.
I have to ask this, even if only hypothetically: If you live in a certain state of the Union, and your citizenship is routinely and systematically stomped into the ground by political and legislative thuggery, do you decide to stay, or you decide to leave?
A lot of people are going to be asking that question.