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 […]

Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer This week, as Michigan’s legislature comes back to work, Michigan Democrats are taking a proactive leadership role on two critical issues. First, Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer and House Rep. Gretchen Driskell (maybe we should call them “The Fighting Gretchens”?) announced that they will introduce legislation requiring companies who choose to deny women access to […]

Last week, Governor Snyder pretended that he’s suddenly concerned with adding protections for LGBT folks to our state’s civil rights law, the Elliott-Larsen Act. As I have already said, this is a sham. Governor Snyder’s own words show how squishy his “support” is: “I’m encouraging them to say there’s been a lot of dialog and discussion on this. It’s been […]

Yesterday at the Mackinac Policy Conference on Mackinac Island, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder did an about-face on his position regarding civil rights for members of the LGBT community. His actions or, rather, lack of actions on behalf of the LGBT community are well-known so the abrupt change is cause for considerable skepticism. Snyder spelled out his new-found interest in LGBT […]

There’s something going on that is truly amazing: Rick Snyder is slowly transforming into his Democratic opponent Mark Schauer on major issues voters are concerned about right now. First it was raising the minimum wage. One day he’s saying it would harm the economy and wasn’t important to him. The next day he’s signing legislation into law that is almost […]

Last year, Governor Snyder was asked about revising Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to extend coverage to members of the LGBT community. The fact that it currently doesn’t means that people like me can be fired from our jobs simply because we are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Governor Snyder’s response was, in effect, “it’s not on my agenda” and […]

Let’s dance [Caricature by DonkeyHotey from photos by Anne C. Savage for Eclectablog] Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is clearly practicing for his court appearance in Detroit on Monday where he’ll testify in the court hearing to determine if the city is eligible to go into bankruptcy. Yesterday, Snyder was asked about his opinion about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Michiganders […]