10-28-06, 2:58 am
The rally was called to urge lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people to get out and vote no on Proposal 2. It was sponsored by a coalition of organizations that included the Human Rights Campaign, Michigan Equality, the Triangle Foundation, the ACLU of Michigan, Planned Parenthood, the National Organization for Women, Emily's List, Michigan Citizen Action and others.
Speaking on the issue of why LGBT people ought to vote no on Proposal 2, David Coulter (D), an openly gay Oakland County Commissioner who lives in Ferndale, said, 'Our struggle, the struggle of African Americans for civil rights, the struggle for women's equality are the same. If we as gay people expect others to stand up for us, we have to stand up for others.'
Noting that the LGBT community is made up of people of color and women, Coulter added, 'If its wrong for anybody, its wrong for us too.'
Ferndale City Council member Craig Covey talked about the importance of the November 7th election. In addition to defeating Proposal 2, Covey urged voters to send the Republicans in the state legislature home. He accused them of standing in the way of progress by blocking legislative proposals put forward by Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm to expand health care, revitalize cities, and invest in job creation.
Local activist Ann Heler reminded Ferndale voters to support the Human Rights Ordinance that will appear on the ballot in that city. If passed it would provide explicit protections for LGBT members of the community as well as strengthen anti-discrimination laws.
Human Rights Campaign organizer Michelle Brown stated that voting yes on Proposal 2 means that you don’t want women to have access to institutions of power. She expressed optimism, however, about the November 7th election. 'We are in the midst of regime change,' she asserted.
ACLU of Michigan attorney Jay Kaplan asked that, with the hot campaigns that are dominating this election, voters remember to make the right choice for the Michigan State Supreme Court.
One of the candidates running for reelection to the Court is Republican nominated Chief Justice Corrigan. Corrigan is part of a clique of right-wing extremists who have helped to distort Michigan law over the last few years.
For example, in the case of Veenstra v. Washtenaw Country Club (2002), Corrigan, along with three hard right Republican-nominated judges, ruled against a man suing for compensation for having been fired because he and his wife were divorced. Corrigan and her cohorts used an 1846 state law that criminalizes adultery to deny the man compensation after it was discovered that he had had an affair while working at the country club. Corrigan basically said the country club had the right to fire the man because he had committed a crime.
In other cases, Corrigan has ruled that landlords can discriminate against gay and lesbian couples, ordered a county judge to stop allowing unmarried couples to adopt children, and decided that a woman who claimed sexual harassment based on sexual orientation had no right sue her employer (the city of Detroit).
Corrigan is an activist judge whose main role on the court is to scale back civil rights and protections. Alternatives to Corrigan's extremism are Democratic nominee Jane Beckering who wants to protect people's rights which have been seriously undermined under the current Republican-dominated court, and Democrat-nominated Mike Cavanaugh.
Four other such rallies were held simultaneously across the state.
--Joel Wendland can be reached at
