A campaign to add LGBTQ anti-discrimination protections to Michigan’s civil rights law is deciding what to do next. That’s after the US Supreme Court ruled Monday that many of those protections already exist in federal law.
The Fair and Equal Michigan signature-gathering campaign faces hurdles created by COVID-19 restrictions. The task of collecting 340,042 signatures is proving to be difficult and expensive.
Jay Kaplan is with the ACLU of Michigan. He said the change to Michigan’s civil rights law is still necessary.
“Do we want judges, do we want different judges to be interpreting what language means in a civil rights law as opposed to having explicit protections, explicit mentions of sexual orientation and gender identity to make it absolutely clear,” Kaplan said.
One of the plantiffs in the Supreme Court case was a transgender woman who was fired in 2013 from her job at a Garden City funeral home. Aimee Stephens did not live to see today’s decision. She died last month.
Kaplan says the Legislature could also vote on bills to amend the law. The Legislature’s Republican leaders have shown no interest in bringing either bill up for a vote.
