“We are changing the world today.” “I feel like I can breath now,” Diane VanDorn told me on Sunday after being married to her partner Connie Greer on Saturday at the Washtenaw County Clerk’s office in Ann Arbor. Diane and Connie were one of the first of 300 same-sex couples that were married in Michigan that day. Diane and Connie, […]

Same-sex marriage makes people cry [All non-Twitter photos by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog.] Around 300 same-sex Michigan couples took advantage of a one-day window when they were allowed to marry legally yesterday. Four County Clerks — Nancy Waters in Muskegon, Barb Byrum in Ingham, Lawrence Kestenbaum in Washtenaw, and Lisa Brown in Oakland — opened their offices on […]

Wasting taxpayer money to appeal to a homophobic Republican base Anne and I spent an incredibly emotional day in the offices in Washtenaw’s and Oakland’s County Clerks today, watching hundreds of same-sex couples getting married. It was a unique experience in both of our lives, one we’ll never forget. We’ll have a full report tomorrow with lots of great photos […]

Now can we just call it “marriage”? In a huge victory for marriage equality, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman ruled today that Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional: IT IS HEREBY DECLARED that Article I, § 25 of the Michigan Constitution and its implementing statutes are unconstitutional because they violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to […]

The ban on same-sex marriage in Michigan can tear families apart [left to right: April, Nolan, Jacob, Jayne, and Ryanne] Tomorrow the trial of April DeBoer vs. Rick Sndyer begins. This trial has implications not on for our state but for the entire country. Although it started as a suit to give same-sex parents the same sorts of adoption rights […]

On Saturday night this past weekend, the heroes who are Equality Michigan had their annual fundraising dinner and awards banquet. Although a couple of hundred people attended, it was a surprisingly intimate event on the top floor of the Motor City Casino in Detroit. With the dramatic Detroit skyline dominating the room, LGBT activists and allies gathered to celebrate their […]

What’s happening in Kansas is particularly reprehensible, but discriminatory laws in the name of religion are a troubling national trend. I admit, I don’t know much about Kansas aside from The Wizard of the Oz. Dorothy was sure eager to get out of there. The good-hearted girl would be even more desperate to escape these days, I’d wager. The eyes […]

Share the Love Late last year, Anne and I traveled to the home of Jayne Rowse and April DeBoer, a same-sex couple with adopted children who find themselves at the center of a fierce legal battle over marriage equality and adoption rights for same-sex couples in our state. Our interview got a lot of attention and spurred me on to […]

Got hypocrisy? Dave Agema recently wrote these hateful words on his Facebook page: Have you seen Muslims shaking hands with a Muslim Girl Scouts? Have you seen a Muslim Candy Striper? Have you ever seen a Muslim do anything that contributes positively to the American way of life? After remaining quiet for months as Agema spewed bigoted hate speech on […]

Bigot is as bigot does Anti-marriage equality bigots in Utah have asked the Supreme Court to halt same-sex marriages in their state after a federal judge found their statewide ban unconstitutional. Since the decision, same sex couples have been getting married in droves. The petitioners today described each of these marriages this way: Each one, the state said in its […]

Under fire and on the run You can always tell when you have the tea party backed into a corner. That’s when they bring out the Big Crazy guns with both barrels blazing. That happened this week when the tea party’s Madison Project Michigan PAC sent out an email from Jack Hoogendyk, a tea partier who primaried U.S. Representative Fred […]