Despite progress, LGBTQ Michiganders are still waiting for solid nondiscrimination protections

In many ways, the civil rights of Michigan’s LGBTQ communities are on a stronger footing than ever before. In May 2018, the state’s Civil Rights Commission expanded its interpretation of existing law to include sexual minorities, and announced it would start taking and investigating anti-LGBTQ discrimination complaints.

In January, newly elected Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order banning discrimination in employment and provision of services in state government and among businesses and other organizations contracting with the state. She also eliminated the exemption for nonprofit religious organizations found in a similar order signed by outgoing Republican Gov. Rick Snyder.

Former Attorney General Bill Schuette may have issued a 2018 opinion saying that the Civil Rights Commission was out of bounds when it extended discrimination protections to LGBTQ residents, but the commission—all of the members of which were appointed or re-appointed by Snyder—ignored him. The commission has also asked current Attorney General Dana Nessel, who helped win the court fight for marriage equality, to revisit Schuette’s opinion. In early February, she agreed to do so.

And, of course, marriage equality has been the law of the land since 2015.

While these developments mark huge strides forward for the cause of equal protection under the law, Michigan still has a long way to go. In a law being contested in federal court by the ACLU of Michigan, state-contracted foster care and adoption agencies are allowed to practice religion-based bigotry against sexual minorities.

Equality Michigan, Michigan’s largest LGBTQ victim-advocacy organization, says that it served more than 400 victims of anti-LGBTQ discrimination and violence in 2018 alone. In the largest survey of its kind, in 2015 the National Center for Transgender Equality found widespread discrimination and harassment against transgender Michiganders in areas including employment, education, housing, and health care.

Even with all the progress the state has made, the ACLU of Michigan fielded a complaint after a Kroger cashier refused to sell cigarettes to a transgender man whose gender marker didn’t match the legal name on his driver’s license, and one from a gay man who is being harassed by the security guard at his apartment complex.

The solution, advocates say, is simple: The state must expand the state’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to explicitly protect Michiganders on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

from Daily Kos https://ift.tt/2BLq4IM