Michigan denies domestic partner benefits

[edgelessdepths]

The appeals court in Michigan just ruled this week that public institutions were barred from giving domestic partner benefits to their emplyees, thus taking away both straight and gay couples insurance. They based their ruling on the insidious anti-gay marriage amendment that MI passed in 04. The ruling will be appealed to the MI supreme court but I don't feel that hopeful about it. I feel sick inside about it. I am so pissed and angry that I am just beyond words. Anyone care to commiserate?

[tdogg]

My partner was just telling me about this over dinner. Funny, normally I'm the one with this type of news. Anyhoo, I'll commiserate with you edgelessdepths - it just stinks, totally rotten, completely inhumane.

Are you in Michigan? Here in California, we don't have it quite as bad. Still not equal, but at least we have domestic partnerships and sexual orientation is a protected class in this state. Wow, what can be done at this point, where does one start? There is much work to be done in this country. Let's just hope common sense and intelligence prevail in the struggle over keeping marriage equality in Mass. or doing away with it. Scary when we think, our rights are decided by people who vote but don't bother to truly research the issues, gain their own understanding and go with it.

Some hugs for you! {{{{{ }}}}}

[Zerbie]

Of course.

But the proponents of these amendments insist the amendments in no way deprive anyone of benefits.

Somehow, that amendment has to get overturned.


The one "good" side to this is that once more people learn the effects of these amendments, the more opposition the amendments will have in any state where they come up for a vote.

Oh, these amendments really really suck. That is just plain mean, to take away health care benefits when there's already a crisis of unaffordable health care in this country. How do those people live with themselves?

[Tinkerbell047]

Wait... they took the benefits from BOTH homosexual and heterosexual couples? My God, I thought we were crazy as is for not allowing gay couples to get benefits! I have reached the conclusion that our government needs as much prayer as the guy sitting next to you.

[Emproph]

Originally Posted by Zerbie

The one "good" side to this is that once more people learn the effects of these amendments, the more opposition the amendments will have in any state where they come up for a vote.

That's what I was thinking. As human 'resources' begin to shift toward gay friendly states, it seems the economic impact on the anti-gay states will begin to snowball. It's unfortunate in the meantime but more ammunition for us in the future.

December 22, 2004:

"The absence of domestic partner benefits is really a serious recruiting issue for us," UW-Madison Provost Peter Spear told the Wisconsin State Journal. "We know of instances where we have lost outstanding candidates because of it."

April 4, 2005:

The recent experience of the University of Wisconsin, which lost two senior GBLT professors and a senior administrator to other institutions of higher learning that provide domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples, is an illustration of the future of states like Michigan, if social conservatives are successful in judicial efforts to leverage anti-marriage amendments into bans on domestic partner benefits.

Karen Ryker, Larry Wu and Christine Saulnier all left the University of Wisconsin system for other schools in recent years, each citing the state's policy to refuse health insurance coverage for domestic partners.

Re Michigan ruling, Feb 2, 2007:

[A] huge proportion of the best and brightest professors, researchers, and other employees won't even consider Michigan...As those top academic and professional recruits head to Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, Oxford, Thunderbird, INSEAD or other places, their profiles will grow even more prominent -- draining still more employees away from UMich.

The economic activity of universities isn't limited to teaching. As the best and brightest professors who happen to be gay or lesbian head to other institutions, the halo effects they deliver will go with them. Startups growing from academic research will pop up in other places -- not Michigan. Undergraduates and graduates deciding to stay locally to start businesses or join leading companies will stay in other places -- not Michigan. Private research grants and R&D expenditures going to top institutions will go to other academic communities -- not Michigan.

[ladyinred]

definitely discrimination and outrageous. They aren't only taking away benefits from partners but thei children as well. What level will they sink to next. That anyone justifies this and thinks it normal to punnish gay people by taking away benefits when they are working and paying taxes and social security.. and where are our rights then as tax paying citizens then?

[ladyinred]

I've been on forums where there are anti-gay sentiments and it stinks , ordinary people buy into the right wing propaganda about gays, gay parenting and everything they can find to dehumanize us and make us feel like ,and to make us second class citizens.. It happened to black people and the Native American.. Not only were they exploited they were brainwashed into believing they were second class and inferior... as well as being demonized...
Slavery was even justified by early Christians because it was in the bible...The only one of our founding fathers that had any sense was Thomas Paine who opposed slavery... but he was also demonized in the end because he was a deist and had a totally different outlook than the bible.. Religion and belief in God is seen as a justification to do all sorts of horrendous things... and I'm not saying that all religious people are the same or do those things. But people have used the bible to justify their interpretations of it and to achieve their ends.And all we have to do is look at history to see who has suffered for it.
Personally I'm not against religious tolerance or freedom , but I tend to think along the lines of progressive Christians.. and believe in the ideal that all men were created equal.
The dehumanization of gay people is also saying they don't have rights to what other people have, a right to fair treatment and protection from discrimination.. Who suffers are also their children. That the constitution fundamentally guarantees equal protection for all people under the law? I guess the religious right can bend and twist that too.
When my now ex-partner was working and we were still together, she helped to pay for medical insurance so we would have it... so why should gay people be treated differently than others then. Their families have needs just like any other family in the United States..

[ladyinred]

if you don't believe that the religious right is behind all this.. remember they have tremendous influence and power in politics, especially over the Republican party.. I've read that Dobson has even strong-armed his way into the political scene to gain clout and power and influence in politics and over our leaders.. How much power does religion play in politics and policy making? Go to http://www.theocracywatch.org/

[ladyinred]

http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000313.php

[edgelessdepths]

Yeah, it really ruined my day when I heard about it. It makes me sad that people can hate others like that, what kind of morally bankrupt person takes away someone's health care? It hurts me too because I live with finance and I was going to go onto his health care as a domestic partner but I can't now so I'm going to be without health care soon

I just don't understand why the Christian right thinks it is ok to take away a person's basic rights, especially when they are always talking about "morality" etc. Arg...

[edgelessdepths]

I went to an ACLU conference in Ohio on GLBT issues last spring and they mentioned the dominion movement in that state, it's really evil.

[Emproph]

Citizenlink: Gay Activists Decry Michigan Court Ruling

Sean Kosofsky, director of policy for the Triangle Foundation, said he was disappointed that the court made the connection.

"This is the first appellate court in the nation to ever say that health insurance gay and lesbian couples receive are the same as marriage," he told Family News in Focus.

This is what caught my eye:

Monte Stewart, president of the Marriage Law Foundation, said keeping the issue out of the courts has been one of the goals of the gay activism.

"Gay and lesbian advocates have been very careful," he said, "because they believe that the federal courts will not be sympathetic to their situation and they do not want to create adverse precedent."

(Unlike avoiding the courts in order to redefine America itself by amending our constitution(s). )

So I went to the Marriage Law Foundation and found this little tidbit from one Monte Neil Stewart:

Genderless marriage proponents – since the beginning represented by brilliant and well-funded lawyers with a clear, step-by-step strategy for victory in the courts – scored early appellate court victories, in British Columbia, Ontario, and Massachusetts.

They're not only denying health care and other benefits, they're denying that there's a difference between the meaning of same and opposite.

[Emproph]

Mich. high court says gay partners can't get health benefits

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Local governments and state universities in Michigan can't offer health insurance to the partners of gay workers, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The court ruled 5-2 that Michigan's 2004 ban against gay marriage also blocks domestic-partner policies affecting gay employees at the University of Michigan and other public-sector employers.

The decision affirms a February 2007 appeals court ruling.
[...]
The couples represented, by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, argued that the ballot committee that sponsored Proposal 2 "consistently and repeatedly" assured voters that the initiative was only about protecting marriage.
[...]
"It is an odd notion to find that a union that shares only one of the hundreds of benefits that a marriage provides is a union similar to marriage," [Dissenting Justice Marilyn Kelly] wrote.

Amendment language:

To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.

[tymejumper]

Yeah, people voted on this last year. It upset me greatly, and is the main reason that Ellie and I are planning on moving out of Michigan as soon as the children are grown.

My mom came over the day after the vote and was crying(the marriage amendment vote) and asked me how I felt about it. I told her that there was no feeling in the world like that when people tell you in a vote that you are not human.

[Vanessa White]

I heard about it on the radio this morning on my way to work, ironically as my mind was racing with ideas about what we here in PA are going to do to be proactive in terms of a possible referendum in a year or two. I was thinking of tee shirt slogans and ways to organize our communities. Has this slogan been used?

"Got marriage?"

Kind of like the "got milk?" ads?

I was thinking that I could create or have someone create a website, or blog, or on the back of a tee shirt, put a link to the Equality PA website. I am on a creative spree so I want to go with it. Also plan on taking Zerb up on her offer to help us in any way she can.

Just as we have all suspected, rightfully so without being paranoid about it, that a marriage amendment is just the first, definitive step in saying that being gay is not okay, and then being able to legally denying any and all rights to us as couples and families.

This #$%#@ sucks.............

[Emproph]

Originally Posted by Vanessa White

"Got marriage?"

Kind of like the "got milk?" ads?

Got Marriage?



It's not too late...

EqualityPA.org

[Vanessa White]

We will be crying over this spilled milk if we don't stop this before it starts.

Patrick, would you be our press/logo person? You are SO good at it!!!

[Zerbie]

Originally Posted by Vanessa White

We will be crying over this spilled milk if we don't stop this before it starts.

Patrick, would you be our press/logo person? You are SO good at it!!!

Terrific!

[Zerbie]

Originally Posted by tymejumper

Yeah, people voted on this last year. It upset me greatly, and is the main reason that Ellie and I are planning on moving out of Michigan as soon as the children are grown.

My mom came over the day after the vote and was crying(the marriage amendment vote) and asked me how I felt about it. I told her that there was no feeling in the world like that when people tell you in a vote that you are not human.

I'm so sorry.


The night we watched votes come in, one woman said to me: "I woke up this morning and my first thought was, 'today, everyone is voting on the rest of my life.'" I don't even wanna know what that feels like. It's awful enough just watching.

[tymejumper]

you definately should put this one on a shirt! Its awesome. Yeah it really does suck to be a Michigander and gay. Not only do we have the 2nd lowest employment rate but we also discriminate against humans.

Ellie and I went out to eat at Red Robins, a burger place and I sat next to her on the seat and watched tv with her. I had to reach across the back of the seat and grab my purse to pay, and actually put my arm around my wife. I also had sat descreetly with my hand on her leg earlier. Some little old ladies were giving dirty looks to us. I didn't see it and would not have cared, but Ellie told me all about it when we left. She felt uncomfotable with them. When I asked her why she didn't say anything there she said that "she knew I would say something to them" and didn't "want a scene". She is absolutely correct, I would have. On the other hand, a young straight couple asked to borrow our Katchup as theirs was not on the table, they didn't blink to much of an eye. The guy looked nervous, but I think he was unsure of how to address us, or maybe over having to ask for the Katchup. I told him that actually they were borrowing their own Katchup back cause I had taken it off the table before they sat down, ours was empty.

I really have not had too many hard times about the lesbian thing.