Group Wants LGBT Civil Rights Protections on Ballot

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Gay marriage is now the law of the land, but the Michigan Constitution doesn’t prohibit discrimination based on gender, gender identity, sex and sexual orientation.

The attorney who led Michigan’s same-sex marriage case to a landmark conclusion by the U.S. Supreme Court aims to change that as leader of a group called Fair Michigan, which plans to start gathering signatures early next year for a ballot initiative to amend the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.

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As it’s currently written, the civil rights law prohibits discrimination in employemnt and housing based on religion, race, color, national origin, age, sex, height, weight, familial status, or marital status. It doesn’t specifically protect women and members of the LGBT community.

“We would just be adding different classes of people to the constitution who aren’t getting protection now,” the attorney, Dana Nessel, told the Detroit Free Press.

Lansing attorney Richard McLellan, a Republican, will co-chair the bipartisan effort with Nessel, The Detroit News said.

“The fact is that the Michigan Legislature has ignored efforts to protect people, so it’s time we gave Michigan voters the power,” Nessel said.

Some LGBT activists worry a ballot drive could backfire and is almost certain to face the same level of hostile opposition as a campaign for a human rights ordinance in Houston, TX. A defeat at the ballot box could make lawmakers less likely to expand Elliott-Larsen, activists with Equality Michigan, the state’s largest LGBT advocacy group, said.

“For a campaign like this to be successful it requires all that are affected by it to be involved,” Equality Michigan Executive Director Stephanie White told the Free Press. “It’s definitely time to expand our rights and I’m not opposed to any idea out there. But I also worry because there are certainly pitfalls to a big, public campaign like this. I want to make sure all our ducks are in line before we go forward.”

Equality Michigan isn’t part of the ballot initiative campaign. That could happen, but first, White thinks candid conversations should take place about whether a public ballot initiative is the right strategy to expand civil rights to protect LGBT individuals.

“The opposition will bring everything they can to win and if people are subjected to that kind of hostility, they have the right to say if this is the right thing to do and the right time to do it,” White said.

AT&T Michigan President Jim Murray, who is gay, shared White’s worries about whether a ballot initiative is the right path to expand the civil rights law.

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• Should LGBT individuals be protected from discrimination in hiring and housing? If so, what’s the best way to achieve this — through the Legislature or at the ballot box? Share your thoughts in the comments.

“Having setbacks in the Legislature is a lot different than losing a referendum,” Murray, a former Republican legislative aide, told The Detroit News. “If you lose at the ballot box, you are finished for decades. There would be a boat load of money spent in opposition with an uncertain outcome. It’s a huge, unacceptable gamble.”

Nessel, the attorney for the Michigan plaintiffs April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse in the watershed U.S. Supreme Court case, said the court’s June ruling has already accelerated discrimination.

“That decision came out on a Friday and it was such a wonderful day and then I went into my office on Monday and I was hearing from people who were being fired after announcing their engagement,” Nessel told the Free Press. “We believe that no one should lose their job based on sexual orientation, sex or gender identity.”

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