The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that governments and state universities can’t offer health insurance to the partners of gay workers. The court ruled 5-2 on Wednesday that Michigan’s 2004 ban against gay marriage also blocks domestic-partner policies affecting gay employees at the University of Michigan and other public-sector employers.” [AP]
Ill Will.
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todd
Michigan is in a major downward slide into the dark ages. When you have a bunch of beaten down, socio-economically depressed people fighting for the same crumbs from a piece of the proverbial pie, it’s a bad scene. Generosity isn’t high on the list of virtues. It’s a mean, hateful climate right now.
mike
I live in Michigan. I do not think that the Supreme Court’s 5-2 “Ill Will” decision reflects the voices of Michigan voters. Nor do I think Michigan voters were in support of banning anything other than marriage. It wasn’t made clear in 2004 that it would ban anything that could possibly someday maybe potentially meaning somewhat equal yet still 2nc class rights.
Jaroslaw
I too live in Michigan. When the ballot initiative came up, I’m pretty sure the backers told the board of canvassers that it was ONLY about marriage. But when you want to get rid a slimeball politician, or push something good and decent the board of canvassers always finds the tiniest reason to keep that off the ballot. If they followed the same approach, the marriage thing should have never made it to the ballot. Politics is such a load of crap.
todd
What did Jennifer Granholm do for us except come to a gay party and take our votes. She gave nothing in return.
Tom
The whole gay marriage push that we made has to be one of the biggest strategic blunders in civil rights history. We tried to bite off more than the American public would allow us to chew. The more we continue to push for this, the more backlash we are going to feel. We really need to stop and backoff, regroup and push for civil unions. If we don’t, we will get a jackass movement amending the federal constitution that will forever doom any chances of civil union parity.
This is really bad news.
Rob Moore
I don’t live in Michigan, but I followed the debate there as here in Georgia. I remember those pushing these hateful amendments to protect special rights for heterosexuals saying it would only marriage. At the time, I had an image in my mind of them crossing their fingers behind their backs when they said it. Never trust a conservative pushing social engineering. They think nothing of lying to get what they want.
Alec
This decision was preordained by the composition of the court. I campaigned for the Dems in 2004 when this amendment was passed and was extremely frustrated when this question came up with voters, who were convinced that you could get all the benefits with contracts at any rate (decidedly not true).
In any event, when they say it is about marriage, it almost never is. They were targeting domestic partnership rights the entire time.
Jaroslaw
I forgot – when this thing came up, the language said something like “any incident of marriage” so the court actually made the only decision they could. What should have happened is that the proponents of this should have been rejected by the Board of Canvassers for having proposed and amendment too broad and unclear.
Re: #5 – Tom – I would have thought the same thing – we bit off more than we can chew. You’re wrong. Guess what – after having dealt with civil unions, the percentage of Vermonters favoring marriage is increasing. They have seen the sky hasn’t fallen, Target is still open etc. ie nothing major has changed. SS marriage in Massachusetts hasn’t reduced public opinion in favor of SSM, it has increased there as well. The fact the sky hasn’t fallen should be trumpeted by every Gay spokesperson every single time they are on TV, Radio or Newspapers/magazines talking about this subject.
Alec
Jaroslaw: I dunno, I don’t think they didn’t have a choice. That was very ambiguous language. Reasonable minds can differ.
Think the actual language was “similar union for any purpose.” The legal ambiguity in that abounds. At the very least, if, as the amendment purports, marriage is only the legal union of man and woman, then same-sex relationships are dissimilar by definition. Not a convenient definition for conservatives, but a possible if not probable one for the court.
Rick
this is the letter i sent to my local paper the herald palladium yesterday. i live in berrien county michigan.
I am happy that we can all see now that when the American Family Association of Michigan said that the gay marriage amendment had nothing to do with benefits that it actually did have to do with benefits. They lied. They have pulled this time after time in state after state.
Alas, they didn’t totally get their way. When the affected entities re-wrote their benefits policies they used the word UNRELATED. That kind of punches a hole in the plan of the American Family Association which was if gays got job related benefits then married people should be allowed to tack all and sundry onto their policies so gays wouldn’t be getting “special rights”.
It should be noted that the same people behind the marriage amendment are the same ones opposed to anti-bullying legislation. They seem to think it is their right to kick gay people around simply for the fact that they are or might be gay and it is their Christian right to tell them they are going to hell and want their children to be able to do the same without punishment. And in a school setting to boot.
I am sure Jesus is just thrilled with these people and the way they have ignored and twisted his teachings.
Now lets all get out their and ban divorce and unwed parenthood.
Jaroslaw
I just got a very long e-mail about the decision – 2 justices dissented, stating the majority by ignorning campaign literature and a website by the backers of the amendment (which explicitly state the amendment was NOT about benefits) condone campaign mischief. More to the point, how can the “will of the voters” be crystal clear to the [Supreme court] majority under these conditions?
Sure makes it crystal clear why many folks have no use for politics or the courts in a very large and growing number of instances.