Michigan Requires State Employees to Refuse Service to Gay People
Source: Slate
By Mark Joseph Stern
In Michigan, all you need to change your last name is a marriage license. But when Michigan resident Jesse Sherman, who married his longtime partner Derek Melot in New York last October, presented his license to a state employee, his request was denied. The license might be valid in the eyes of New York and the federal government, Sherman was informedbut it wasnt in Michigan. The Secretary of States office has confirmed this policy, noting that anything that would lead the staff person to believe [a marriage certificate] is a same-sex marriage license would result in denial of service.
In a sense, this result was inevitable. In 2004, Michigan voters enshrined homophobia in the state constitution, passing an amendment that forbade the state from legally recognizing any facet of a same-sex relationship. Its logical, if perverse, that the amendment's malevolence should trickle down to DMVs and bureaucrats, who are required by law to remind gay people that they are, officially, second-class citizens. If the constant parade of indignities caused by a ban like Michigans wasnt clear to voters when they passed the amendment, it certainly is now.
But it seems unlikely that this kind of discrimination was what voters had in mind back in 2004. That, of course, was one of the darkest moments for gay rights in the United States, when Republicans (led by Ken Mehlman) pushed 11 states to ban gay marriage in order to boost voter turnout for Bush. The strategy worked: Bush was re-elected, and every state overwhelmingly passed its ban. At the time, few seriously expected any of the bans to failnor did most voters seriously consider the impact the measures would have on gay peoples everyday lives. Gay marriage was, at that point, an ideological bugaboo rather than a practical reality: Only one state allowed gay marriage, after all, so it was hard to imagine how a ban would do anything other than entrench the status quo.
That was before 18 states (and the District of Columbia) deemed same-sex unions worthy of the dignity in the community equal with all other marriages, before the Supreme Court praised evolving understanding of the meaning of equality, before a sitting president endorsed gay marriage, before the country tipped in its favor. Now, the actual effects of bans like Michigans are clearand increasingly unconscionable to most Americans. These bans dont only deny gay couples the basic dignity of marriage; they insult gay people in a thousand different ways, making basic activities like changing ones name or entering the country fraught with confusion and potential embarrassment. Supporters of Michigans ban probably didnt imagine what it would feel like to go to the DMV, to the hospital, to a customs agent, and have to explain that though youre legally wed in part of the country, your own state insists on dissolving your marriage within its borders.
Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/01/03/michigan_gay_discrimination_state_encourages_employees_to_discriminate_against.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content&mc_cid=cf4e04bfc7&mc_eid=7a8b58c8c3
SCVDem
(5,103 posts)Do they have the money to pay the lawsuits?
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)How to get around it? Get a passport in your married name. Show your out of state driver's license in your married name and your FEDERAL Passport, and you don't need to show your BC. They don't have to know that your are married, gay or straight. I always show my Passport as ID. None of your business whether I am straight or gay married from New York.
plantwomyn
(876 posts)Once your name is changed by the Feds through SSI, use that to get your name changed in the state. In Indiana, they confirmed the change via computer data and we had no problem getting our names changed on our drivers licenses. This was in 2009.
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)States have to accept all Federal documents.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)to ignore you if you try to pay?
eggplant
(3,913 posts)littlewolf
(3,813 posts)livingwagenow
(373 posts)Sickening. This needs to be challenged in court. Federal courts, and many state supreme courts are now often ruling in favor of LGBT rights. I'm gay and follow this issue closely(one doesn't need to be gay to want to follow the issue). The issue of LGBT rights in America's court systems. In recent years I've noticed a trend of high court cases(state supreme, federal courts and USSC) that these high courts are ruling in favor of progressing LGBT rights.
Thanks for posting to raise awareness.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)... affect the children of LGBT couples who married in another state? And what if the couple adopted out-of-state? And if one partner died, what happens to the children? I can see the snowballing effect of such laws and it's scary as hell.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)C'mon, Michigan, you can do much better than this.
How's the states's education, rates of unemployment, homelessness, crime and the deficit?
What kind of luxury is this, when there are more important issues?
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Especially since the law has been on the books for almost 10 years. Oregon was another one of the states that approved a constitutional amendment. A repeal will be on the ballot 10 months from now and it looks like it may pass.
Karma13612
(4,554 posts)Of why I don't agree with all these individual state laws.
Any resident in this country should be able to move about the whole country and enjoy the same exact rights involving:
Healthcare
Voting
Driving ( when the heck are we going to have one national driving license??)
wage and employment law
marriage
Womens rights to chose
use of tobacco (age and locations where it is allowed- private homes versus public venues)
Use of alcohol (age , bac limits, etc)
And yea,
Use of Pot!!!
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
But i am really tired of individual state laws that limit what a human being can do based on their geography.
After all, we are the United states. we are one nation.
Sorry, just my thoughts!!!
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)Here are the current and future battlegrounds, as outlined by the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/11/06/from-here-on-out-legalizing-same-sex-marriage-becomes-harder/
treestar
(82,383 posts)denied what? What happened?