Michigan Equality is proud to be part of Unity Michigan, a coalition of Michigan-based organizations who work together on common issues, including equal rights.  The group includes the ACLU of Michigan, Affirmations, Michigan Equality, S.P.I.C.E. and the Triangle Foundation.  The group released the following statement today:

Today’s historic decision is a victory for all Californians who cherish fairness and opportunity. Two people in a committed, trusting and loving relationship in California will now have the support that comes with marriage.

Now California will be a state where every person has the opportunity to realize their hopes and dreams by being able to marry the person they love. The California marriage decision will affect over 36 million people - well over 10% of the total population of America. 

Sadly here in Michigan, our Supreme Court took a different direction when faced with the opportunity to respect families. Just last week the Michigan Supreme Court came to a decision that jeopardizes the health care of Michigan families in committed relationships.

 

We applaud the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Equality California, Our Family Coalition and all the plaintiffs for their courage and leadership. 

Isn’t it time that we make Michigan an equal state?  Join us in our fight by volunteering or making a contribution.

Michigan Equality is pleased to announce that board member and author Michelle E. Brown has released a new book entitled “Wild Fruit Hidden in Open Spaces: Musings in Prose & Poetry”. Ms. Brown is a Michigan native and her writing is deeply influenced by family vacations to Sutton Island in Acadia National Park in Maine.

Her writing captures the amazing power of man to destroy and yet to find hope in the most unexpected places:

Wild fruit, bitter and sweet/Hanging on trees/Hidden amid the weeds/Cowering beneath the brambles/Surviving in concrete jungles/Manicured lawns./That splash of color/Standing witness of earth divine./Cities become suburbs/Man devouring farmlands/Destroying forests/Once a paradise now lost/But hope remains/In the wild fruit/Hidden in open spaces

For more about the author or to purchase her new book, please visit her website at www.michelleelizabethbrown.com.

Good morning! Michigan Equality is live blogging from the 2nd Annual Michigan Policy Summit at the Lansing Center. True to form, we started a wee bit late we’re looking forward to a great day here with hundreds of social justice activists. Have a few extra minutes today? Stop by and meet our speakers Jim Hightower and Amy Goodman.

During the afternoon session, the leaders of the Michigan LGBT movement (including Michigan Equality’s Executive Director Derek Smiertka) will be talking about the Michigan Supreme Court’s recent decision to take away health care benefits from unmarried couples. This is an opportunity to develop a positive, effective strategy to help ensure that this damaging, partisan decision won’t harm Michigan’s children and families.

Stay tuned for more updates from the Summit. Feel free to leave comments if you have any questions.

Afternoon Update

It’s been a great day here in Lansing.  We’ve heard from speakers on topics ranging from the environment, Choice, civic engagement and common defense.  What’s common defense?  It’s where progressives band together on all of our issues - the environmentalists, the pro-Choice movement, the unions and the LGBT community coming together to move an issue.  I heard some really inspiring words from Jim Hightower today:

It’s not enough to be Progressives.  We have to be Aggressives.

The time has come for the entire Progressive movement to come together in support of equality.  Please join the movement today!

In a split decision today, the Michigan Supreme Court upheld a Michigan Appeals Court decision that takes away health care benefits from same sex partners of unmarried state employees.  “We are extremely disappointed in the Michigan Supreme Court,” says Derek Smiertka, Executive Director for Michigan Equality.   “By upholding this narrow interpretation, they are taking away health care benefits from families and children across the state.   For years, local governments, colleges and universities, have been offering health care benefits as part of a private relationship between employer and employee.  Now, those benefits will be taken away, putting children and families at risk.”

Michigan Equality is working with state and local officials, LGBT activists and our allies to help ensure that Michigan’s families and children are protected.  Please help support us by making a contribution to Michigan Equality today.

Many thanks to our volunteers who spent Saturday cleaning up Lansing’s Old Town!

How important are volunteers to nonprofit organizations?  Here at Michigan Equality, our volunteers are critical to our mission and to our success.   So what is a volunteer?

From Wikipedia:

A volunteer is someone who works for free for a community or for the benefit of natural environment primarily because they choose to do so. The word comes from Latin, and can be translated as “will” (as in doing something out of ones own free will). Many serve through a non-profit organization – sometimes referred to as formal volunteering, but a significant number also serve less formally, either individually or as part of a group.

On Saturday, more than a dozen Michigan Equality volunteers gathered at our offices in Old Town Lansing  including a whole group of Lansing Jaycees.  After coffee, bagels and donuts, we went together to the Old Town Lansing Spring Clean Up! where we all pitched in to clean up Old Town and to clean up the hate-filled, anti-gay graffiti from an attack a few weeks ago.  Together we rakes leaves, scraped paint and filled dozens of trash bags.  (I’m STILL pulling paint chips out of my hair, two days later!)  We couldn’t have done this event without our volunteers and we are so grateful that they were able to join us for a cold and windy morning.

How can you volunteer for Michigan Equality?  Go to the Volunteer section of our website and fill out the sign up form.  We’ll work with you to find a project, event or activity that meets your needs and helps make Michigan a better place for all of us.

Tomorrow, Michigan Equality will be participating in the National Day of Silence, standing with hundreds of thousands of students across the country to bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools.  This year’s Day of Silence is in memory of Lawrence King, a California 8th-grader who was shot and killed Feb. 12 by a classmate because of his sexual orientation and gender expression.

Students will hand out cards that say:

Silent for Lawrence King:
Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence (DOS), a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment. This year’s DOS is held in memory of Lawrence King, a 15 year-old student who was killed in school because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward building awareness and making a commitment to address these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today.

Last month, community leaders and LGBT activists gathered at the Capitol to meet with elected officials to urge passage of Matt’s Safe Schools Law.  This collection of anti-school bullying bills has been stalled in Senate committee after passing the Michigan House.

So on Friday, April 25, 2008, please take a moment (or more) to be silent.   Be silent for those who have been killed or injured because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.  Be silent for those who have been harassed or bullied for being LGBT.  Be silent for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Marriage Equality Attracting Skilled Workers To Massachusetts
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff Posted: March 3, 2008 - 5:00 pm ET
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon08/03/030308mass.htm

(Boston, Massachusetts) Massachusetts is reaping huge financial gains as a result of same-sex marriage.

The Boston Business Journal reports that the only state in the country to allow gays to marry is become ” a powerful lure for same-sex couples who want to live in a place where they can get married, gain legal rights and have access to spousal health benefits.”

For decades the state has seen a brain drain despite having some of the most prestigious universities in the nation.

From 2003 to 2005, the population actually fell to 6,429,137 from 6,438,510, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau obtained by the publican.

“Since the marriage law passed, we see a lot more (gay) professionals moving into the Boston area,” Henry Hoey, a member of the Greater Boston Business Council, a chamber of commerce for gay professionals told the Journal.

Hoey said that the organization’s membership has increased 5 percent to 1,100 members since last year. “The effects of this law are starting to take hold.”

Recruitment agencies and other business groups also say they have seen an influx of same-sex couples - mostly professionals.

Attorney Jeffrey Webb and his partner Mark Schuster moved from Los Angeles to Massachusetts in December order to marry.

“That was something that was really important to us,” Webb told the Journal. He is now a partner and practices trial law with a well known Boston-area firm. Schuster is now the chief of general pediatrics and vice chair for health policy research at Children’s Hospital Boston.

In 2003 the Supreme Judicial Court, the highest court in Massachusetts, struck down laws banning same-sex marriage and in 2004 the first gay couples began to wed. Since then more than 10,000 gay and lesbian couples have married in the state.

Below is an op-ed that Dr. Julie Nemecek, a Michigan Equality board member, sent to the Lansing State Journal.

The season of the year that includes Black History Month and Women’s Month seems an appropriate time to reflect on our progress towards equality in America. In the recent movie The Great Debaters, Samantha, one of the college students from an all-black Texas school, boldly argues, ” . . . the time for equality is always, is always right now!” The movie is set in 1935. It took nearly 30 years for congress to enact The Civil Rights Act. Michigan’s civil rights act was passed 13 years later. It seems Michigan was slow to get it. So how are we doing now?
Read the rest of this entry »

I thought you might be interested to see the results just released by the Pride Agenda on some polling they did around New York’s Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act and transgender discrimination more generally. 

Bottom line: A solid majority — 78% — of New Yorkers support a statewide law prohibiting transgender discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations, and only 13% oppose.  Support is strong across the state, whether in upstate (74%), New York City (79%) or the downstate suburbs (82%), and among Democrats (86%), Republicans (67%) and Independents (78%).

The full report can be downloaded here: http://www.prideagenda.org/Portals/0/GENDA%20Survey-Press%20Topline_final.pdf