Same-sex marriage and similar unions have been a nationwide focus during this election season. On Nov. 2, Michiganians will be able to determine where the state stands on the issue.
Proposal 2 is a ballot initiative that, if passed, would amend the state constitution by defining the union of one man and one woman in marriage as the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.
Similar initiatives have occurred in swing states across the country and like amendments have been placed on ballots in more than 10 states nationwide.
The bill was rejected by the Michigan Board of State Canvassers earlier this year, but supporters petitioned and placed it on the general election ballot.
Supporters of the proposal stated that it will protect marriage as a union between a male and a female at a time when they say the institution is threatened.
"Most people agree that people have the right to live however they want, but that doesn't give them the right to redefine marriage for everybody else," said Gary Glenn of the American Family Association of Michigan.
Currently there is a counter initiative to Proposal 2 on campus by the MSU Stonewall Democrats. Members of the group have visited all undergraduate dorms on campus in an effort to explain why they oppose the bill and to gain student support to vote no.
The Stonewall Democrats and other opposers said there are already laws that prevent same-sex couples in Michigan from marrying, and say the phrase "or similar union for any purpose" in this proposal is what presents a cause for alarm.
"Domestic partnerships will be taken away from straight and gay couples, that's the part that people don't realize," said Scott Howell, a philosophy junior who participated in the Stonewall Democrats' initiative.
Scott Maas, a graduate assistant in the Lear Corporation Career Services Center and a student affairs administration graduate student, said if couples lose their domestic partnership benefits, it will hurt their children as well.
"If they have a child between the two of them, that child is going to lose health insurance," Maas said. "That's one thing society doesn't want to see happen. We don't want to see humans without health care, but to see a child without health care is a scary thought."
But Glenn said concerns about employee health benefits aren't valid because the bill will not affect the private sector, which is governed by federal law. He said the University of Michigan and Wayne State University have already spoken out in support of domestic partnership benefits, therefore nulling the students' argument.
Val Meyers, president of MSU's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Faculty, Staff, and Graduate Student Association, or GLFSA, said faculty and staff members are concerned about the future of domestic partnership benefits at MSU.
GLFSA members asked the administration to formally speak out against Proposal 2, but Paulette Granberry Russell, director of the Office of Affirmative Action and Compliance Monitoring, said the university would rather not respond to a hypothetical situation, because the proposal itself does not specifically refer to domestic partnership benefits.
"The potential impact on domestic partnership benefits isn't anything that can be easily determined," she said. "The amendment itself is not worded in a way that makes that impact clear."
Meyers said the university's response makes her wonder if it will later stand up for domestic partnership benefits.
"If the university doesn't fight for the right to contract with their employees, I do think it's going to be very hard for the employees to trust the university in the future."
Proposal 2 supporters said the passing of the proposal will protect the family structure and will most importantly protect children, who Glenn said need both a mother and a father.
But opposers to the proposal said the basis of a family should be a healthy relationship between family members.
"The key to any healthy family is loving individuals committed to the relationship of that family," said Stephen Purchase, the communications director for the MSU Democrats and an international relations and political theory and constitutional democracy junior. "It shouldn't matter whether the parents are a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and a man."
Although there are existing Michigan laws defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman, some supporters of the proposal said they feel it is necessary to reiterate the definition of marriage in Michigan.
"Massachusetts and Ontario, Canada also had laws that defined marriage as between a man and a woman, until those laws were thrown out by judges," Glenn said. "We want to make sure what happened in Ontario and Massachusetts does not happen in Michigan."
Glenn said the ballot initiative will better represent the opinion of Michigan because it will let voters in Michigan decide their stance on the issue for themselves.
"In Massachusetts, the question was answered by four judges. In Michigan, it will be answered by four million voters," he said.
