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Hearing in ACLU court challenge to ban on Michigan same-sex partner benefits held yesterday
August 8, 2012
By Scottie Thomaston
Back in January, Prop 8 Trial Tracker wrote about a new challenge to a Michigan law banning some same-sex partners’ benefits filed by the ACLU. Michigan’s governor had signed the new ban on December 22:
In a move that didn’t receive that much attention in the midst of the holiday season, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law on December 22 a ban on some public institutions’ same-sex partner benefits. Although public universities and state government employees are exempt from the new law, other school and municipal employees have been directly affected. In a particularly offensive (and outdated) comment supporting the legislation, lead sponsor Representative David Agema said, “time and again, Michigan residents have said ‘no’ to paying for the health benefits of the roommates and unmarried partners of public employees.
Yesterday, arguments began in the case, in district court. More that 60 people were in the courtroom to hear testimony:
Ramber, who has glaucoma, arthritis and might face blindness if she can’t access care, will lose her benefits Dec. 31 when her partner’s employer — the city of Kalamazoo — stops offering them.“I’m scared to death about losing my benefits. And my eyesight? The thought of losing that is terrible,” Ramber testified before Lawson, who is considering the request to strike down the law. “It’s been hard. My son doesn’t understand why this law treats us differently than other families.”
The state’s arguments sound familiar: they argued that the state has a right to save its money, and they argued the state has a strong interest in “protecting marriage.” Michigan doesn’t allow same-sex marriage so the state says that these couples are different based on the fact that their relationships are not legally protected, and not entitled to benefits.
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4 Comments Leave a Comment
1.
Sagesse | August 8, 2012 at 10:21 am
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2.
Tyler O. | August 8, 2012 at 5:45 pm
What is it about Michigan that makes it so much more rabidly anti-gay than other northern states? Even Georgia (!) has more LGBT protections.
3.
Scott Wooledge | August 8, 2012 at 9:25 pm
A lot of Evangelical Christians in the west side. It's my home state, but they seem to be tracking increasingly more and more rightward. They seemed kinda moderate when I left in 1993. Now they seem like Teabaggistan.
I think it's politics of demonization basically. Michigan's economy has been in the shitter since 1970s, so that's gotta be someone's fault! Can't be trickle down Reaganomics, Fox News tells them that always works. It can't be that the corporatocracy has shipped all the state's manufacturing jobs overseas. So much better to blame the gays (when you're not blaming the blacks).
It's all those gay partner benefits. They're bankrupting Michigan!
4.
Mike in Baltimore | August 10, 2012 at 7:59 pm
I was born and educated in NE Indiana (within about 35 miles South of the IN/MI state line). I left that doG-forsaken state in 1973. My grandfather (at whose house I spent a lot of my childhood) was a farmer, and got a lot of his agricultural information from a radio station located in Lansing, Michigan, which meant the station, being located in the Capital of Michigan, carried a lot of Michigan political information.
Even so, the GOP of Michigan seemed, when I left, to be pretty 'moderate', no where near tea bagger land.
Since then, the power of SW, western and Upper Lower Michigan, and the Upper peninsula of Michigan (the hearts of the GOP in Michigan) seems to have skyrocketed, with the GOP going more and more reactionary right each year.
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