Although Michigan has had its first openly gay legislator for two years, anti-discrimination legislation including sexual orientation can’t seem to gain momentum.
The House introduced three bills in 2001 addressing discrimination or assault based on sexual orientation and all three have failed to leave committee or move to the Senate. But supporters of such measures say they’re not willing to give up yet.
“Now that I’m here, that doesn’t mean we can all of a sudden pass all these laws,” said Rep. Chris Kolb, D-Ann Arbor. “It’s not going to happen overnight.”
Kolb, who became the state’s first openly gay legislator after he was elected to the House in November 2000, will be among the speakers at the Michigan Pride rally at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Capitol. He has sponsored legislation that would include sexual orientation in the state’s hate crime law.
Two other bills, one that would amend the state’s civil rights act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, and one that would require schools to adopt policies prohibiting harassment, intimidation or bullying at school based on sexual orientation also have been introduced in the last year.
Those bills are sponsored by Rep. Patricia Godchaux, R-Birmingham, and Rep. Samuel “Buzz” Thomas, D-Detroit, respectively.
Kolb said the three legislators’ had hoped to increase the number of co-sponsors on all the bills and to get a hearing.
Only one bill achieved that goal - Thomas’ “bullying” bill.
“Kids should have the right to be safe,” said Todd Cook, Thomas’ legislative aide. “If there are not equal rights for all, there are equal rights for none.”
But even that bill didn’t move past a committee hearing because of the sexual orientation language, Godchaux said.
“There are always going to be people who will try to stop these efforts,” she said. “People just need to respond, ‘Your kind of hatred is not what we want for our community.’”
The American Family Association of Michigan is among the groups that lobby against inclusion of sexual orientation in anti-discrimination laws. Association President Gary Glen said the bullying measure had merit, but should have simply addressed abuse in general.
“We think it’s appropriate to ban bullying against all students as opposed to singling out specific categories based on certain characteristics,” he said.
But the American Family Association has taken hard-line stances on other issues. The group helped lead drives against several Michigan cities’ efforts to add sexual orientation to civil rights ordinances.
Last year, Huntington Woods became the 13th city to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. Voters in two other cities, Kalamazoo and Traverse City, overturned efforts supported by the American Family Association to ban the cities from ever giving anti-discrimination protection to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.
East Lansing has included sexual orientation since 1981, and revised its ordinance further on March 31 to add gender identity.
“It’s a real step forward,” Godchaux said of local communities’ efforts. “Very often, the state beats the federal government to legislation, and, in this instance, local governments are one-upping the state.”
But not all local initiatives are succeeding. Until last week, a Washtenaw County judge was allowing the practice of same-sex couple adoptions. Probate Judge Richard Shelton, the only Michigan judge allowing co-adoption by unmarried partners, was ordered to stop by a superior.
Godchaux called such forms of discrimination “un-American.”
“People are more and more realizing that discriminating against people because you think they are part of a group makes no sense,” she said. “The Legislature is ignoring people’s rights.”
The moderate Republican is term-limited from her House seat this year, but said she hopes to “hunt someone down in the fall who is willing to reintroduce my legislation.”
Maryland recently became the 12th state to add sexual orientation to its civil rights law, Kolb said. But the majority of states have hate crimes bills that include sexual orientation.
Glenn contends every crime is a hate crime.
“What this legislation basically says is a person could assault a small child, pregnant woman or a senior citizen and they would be punished more severely for assaulting a grown man if that grown man engages in homosexual behavior,” he said. “There’s a 50,000 percent greater chance that a homosexual man experiences violence at the hands of his own partner than at the hands of a skinhead.”
Kary Moss, executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, said the exclusion of LBGT people from hate crimes legislation is abominable.
“It’s not good,” she said. “We’re very far behind nationally.”
Apparently, the United States also is behind. Tuesday, the U.S. Senate dealt a setback to a bill that would make violent attacks based on victims’ sexual orientation a federal hate crime, refusing end debate on the measure and call for a vote.
Rallies and other events are for recognition and “to remind people of our place in the community,” Kolb said.
“It goes both internal for the LBGT community to take pride and recognize others like themselves on campus, but it also is a reminder to the non-LBGT community,” he said.
“We are your next-door neighbor, we are your father, we are your son, we are your best friend.”
