State Board of Education President John Austin, photo by Anne C. Savage for Eclectablog In December of last year, Rick Joseph, the 2015 Michigan Teacher of the Year and self-described “former homophobe”, approached State Board of Education president John Austin asking if he’d be interested in developing guidelines for Michigan school administrators when it comes to making the school environment […]

The following guest post was written by my friend Chris Armstrong, Partnerships and Government Affairs Director for Small Business Majority. Chris was the former student body president of University of Michigan and experienced first hand the corrosive impacts of anti-gay bigotry at the hands of former state Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell who stalked and harassed him during his time […]

Citing a lack of adequate funding, Fair Michigan, a coalition of groups and individuals headed up by civil rights attorney Dana Nessel and that included noted Republicans like Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, Gov. Snyder’s former press secretary Sara Wurfel, and Lansing attorney and political mover-and-shaker Richard McClellan, has ended its attempt to put the civil rights of LGBTQ […]

The guest post was written by Sommer Foster, the Political Director for Equality Michigan and a long time political activist. You can follow her on Twitter at @SNFoster. I used to be a self-proclaimed ally. I had a gay best friend. I had gay and lesbian family members. I voted against the gay marriage ban. I pushed back against homophobic […]

[NOTE: This piece has been edited to correct a claim that Wayne State University Law School Dean Jocelyn Benson had helped draft the ballot language. This statement, based on civil rights attorney Dana Nessel’s opening remarks, was, apparently, inaccurate. I have corrected this post and issued a correction with audio HERE.] Last night, the Jim Toy LGBTQ Community Center sponsored […]

Today, November 20th, is International Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR). TDOR was started by transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in 1998. The day is intended to bring awareness to the violence experienced by the transgender community on a daily basis. The trans community faces […]

According to a Utah judge, foster children are better of with opposite-sex parents and, due to his unfounded belief, has removed the child they had planned to adopt from the home of Beckie Peirce and April Hoagland who are married. “We love her and she loves us, and we haven’t done anything wrong,” Peirce told the Salt Lake Tribune. “And […]

As I reported earlier this week, a group headed up by civil rights attorney Dana Nessel has formed to put civil rights for the LGBT community on the ballot in 2016. Nessel’s group, Fair Michigan, will submit petition language and then collect signatures for a ballot proposal that will enshrine civil rights like employment and housing equality in the state […]

Dana Nessel, the rock star Michigan attorney who was part of the legal team that made same-sex marriage the law of the land in the USA, has formed a ballot committee to collect signatures to put changing the state constitution to protect members of the LGBT community to voters in 2016. If passed, the measure would then compel state legislators […]

The following essay was written by my friend Roscoe Woods, president of the American Postal Workers Union, 480-4781 Area Local which represents postal workers in the southeast part of the state. A version of it first appeared in their newsletter The Communicator over the summer. I particularly love this piece because it tells a personal story of acceptance of an […]

It’s easy for Democrats to hope that Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination because it’s easy to believe he can’t win. For those of us who watched in horror as George W. Bush won (twice), we know otherwise. For those who watched the Michigan state legislature be completely taken over by tea party religious zealots, we know otherwise. Trump, who […]