According to PrideSource, throughout the campaign to constitutionally ban marriage for gay couples in Michigan, antigay advocates said that Proposal 2 was "only about marriage….this is not about rights or benefits or how people choose to live their life."
But the Associated Press reports that a state representative said Monday he was working on a measure to oppose health benefits for gay partners of state employees in new contracts for state workers that have already been agreed to by the state and five labor unions. Michigan’s governor, apparently no role model for courage or principle, responded by hastily revoking the benefits.
Meanwhile… the White House — implying a nonexistent voter mandate to amend the constitution — offers some double-talk on states’ rights and the popular will.
What is so sad about this situation is that the governor doesn’t realize that pandering to bigots gets him no support at all.
> “Michigan’s governor, apparently no role model for courage or principle”
This is unfair. My take on this — as a Michigan resident — is twofold. First, Gov. [Jennifer] Granholm and her Lt. Gov. are the sole Democrats in the executive branch, dealing with a Republican-controlled legislature and a Republican Attorney General. Starting a political-rhetorical brawl at this point is a waste of energy and largely doomed anyway.
Second, by doing this I think she chose the path of “least harm” by throwing this into the courts — which was inevitable anyway — as soon as possible (ACLU and UAW have already filed suit). Indeed, it is BECAUSE of those already-negotiated union contracts for state employees, which don’t take effect until later this year, that Granholm took this aggressive action and is betting that the courts will resolve this in favor of same-sex partners of state employees, before the effective date of the contracts. It’s wrong to think she’s abandoned her LGBT constituents — a very important group to her. What she’s done is strategic and you might even say shrewd, by forcing the inevitable court confrontations onto the fastest track possible.