Yesterday, I wrote about how nobody from the LGBT community was given time to speak about their personal stories at the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act expansion legislation hearing. In that piece, I published the prepared testimony of trans activist and personal friend Amy Hunter from Kalamazoo. Amy wasn’t the only one who had prepared to speak but was unable to […]

Reliable sources in Lansing have informed me that expansion of the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act is dead in the water in 2014 and will not be voted on during the lame duck session. According to the source, Republican House Speaker Jase Bolger says neither version of the expansion bill – one that includes transgender Michiganders and one that doesn’t – […]

This post has been updated as indicated This morning, a hearing was held in Lansing to debate the expansion of the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. After hearing from members of the business community testifying in favor of the legislation, faith-based groups both in favor of and opposing adding civil rights protections for the LGBT community, the House Commerce Committee adjourned […]

There is no question that newly-elected Todd Courser is going to provide endless fodder for this website for at least a couple of years. He hasn’t even taken office yet but Courser is already acting as if he owns the place and has a lock on what it means to be conservative and Republican. Courser seems fixated on ensuring that […]

Hearings set for Dec. 3 and 4 on two pieces of legislation critical to the LGBT community and beyond. Take action now. If you believe that every Michigander deserves equal protection under the law — with no exceptions — the time to be heard is now. The Michigan Legislature is holding hearings on two pieces of legislation this week that […]

Unfair as it may be, there are certain things we northerners think of when you think of southern states. The first is bigotry and intolerance. Another is a near worshipful devotion to guns and anything related to guns. Hunting is part of it but just walking around with a big weapon strapped to your body is a much bigger part […]

There is one thing that Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has in common with April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, the two women who are challenging Michigan’s bigoted same-sex marriage ban: they both want their case to go to the Supreme Court of the United States as quickly as possible. The difference is that Bill Schuette is using our tax dollars […]

I took this screenshot from the front page of The Detroit News this afternoon:

Click through for a larger version

That’s what we call irony, kids. Irony, pure and simple.

Evolution is tough for bigots. They struggle as the world around them changes and evolves and becomes better, more accepting of people who are different than them. Chauvinists struggled with the women’s suffrage movement in the early part of the 20th Century and then again during the fight for equality in the latter half of the 20th Century. Racists struggled […]

No one’s religious liberty is at risk, but the Michigan Legislature wants to use religion to infringe on the rights of others anyway. That didn’t take long. Less than two weeks after the midterm elections, Michigan Republicans began pushing a bill that would make it legal to discriminate on religious grounds Given the Republican majority in the Michigan Legislature — […]

Back in September, I wrote about how Michigan Republicans, facing massive pressure from across the state – including from the business community they worship with such reverance – started discussing updating the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to include civil rights protections for the LGB community. They had no intention, I had heard at the time, of including protections for “gender […]