A2POLITICO: Where’s Your Snyder, Now, Eh?
by P.D. Lesko
IN THE FILM “The Ten Commandments,” with Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson, a mocking Robinson quips to downtrodden Hebrew slaves “Where’s your Moses, now, eh?” It’s a line that is all at once absurd (Robinson’s New York accent is thick) and taunting. I was reminded of the line after the news story broke that Ann Arbor’s state Sen. Rebekah Warren (D) along with Rep. Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) introduced legislation to amend the state’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act to include protecting the state’s GLBT residents. They have been waiting, patiently, for a Republican legislator to step out of the 1950s and come on board as a cosponsor.
One Republican lawmaker, Rep. Frank Foster (R-Pellston) indicated he would support such legislation. Then, he lost his Republican primary over the issue. Gov. Rick Snyder and a host of business leaders have indicated they believe it may be the right moment to attach a team of horses to the state’s commitment to civil equality and drag it—along with the state’s GOP leadership—kicking and screaming into the here and now.
After all, The Detroit News’ latest poll shows 74 percent support for adding LGBT people to anti-discrimination legislation (including 57 percent of Republicans).
When the Governor attended the 2014 Detroit Regional Chamber Policy Conference on Mackinac Island in May, a group of business leaders endorsed adding LGBT rights to the state’s civil rights law. Snyder said: “I don’t believe in discrimination and I think it would be great if they, the Legislature, looked at it later in the year.” This from the pol who signed Public Act 297, which stripped state employees of their domestic partner benefits. That legislation went into effect on December 22, 2011. It was the perfect gift that has kept on giving.
Sen. Warren and Rep. Singh went public with their bills and the only sounds from the Governor’s office were those of crickets chirping. At the press conference, Warren and Singh were joined by members of the Unity Michigan Coalition and Professor Peter Hammer, director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at the Wayne State University Law School.
In reality, as political analyst Jack Lessenberry pointed out recently, Sen. Warren’s reintroduction of the same legislation she introduced last year has more to do with her own political aspirations and less to do with civil rights. Lessenberry said: “The bad news, for those who believe in those rights, is that this bill is never going to pass, not this year, anyway. And Rebekah Warren knows that very well. Republicans control the Legislature, and they are heavily dependent on the religious right, much of which does not believe in anyone’s right to be gay.”
For Sen. Warren, her civil rights gesture is more about painting Republicans into a corner two months before the general election: “Rebekah Warren knows that public opinion has now moved ahead of the Republicans on gay rights, especially those in the Michigan Legislature. Increasingly, they are out of step with the times, and she’s hoping their refusal to change will highlight this,” said Lessenberry.
Both Gov. Snyder and Sen. Rebekah Warren are using the issue of LGBT civil rights for their own political purposes, both knowing full well that their support of changing the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting through the Michigan Legislature. The state’s LGBT residents deserve better than to be used as pawns.
Here’s the bottom line, though, until the state’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act is amended, Michigan will remain among the more than two dozen states in the U.S. which allow people to be fired simply for being gay.
