Kalamazoo plays host to struggle over gay, transgender rights

(Photos by David Alire Garcia/Michigan Messenger)

KALAMAZOO — With the constant din of volunteers talking and phones ringing behind him, City Commissioner David Anderson sat on a metal folding chair at campaign headquarters and explained his reluctant entry into the battle over a proposed anti-discrimination ordinance in this southwest Michigan city.

“I didn’t run to work on this issue,” he said, referring to Ordinance 1856, which he helped write. “Quite frankly, this was not on my radar.” He added that the local advocacy group Kalamazoo Aliance for Equality did the initial pushing.

But the fledgling ordinance needed a sponsor. “As it turned out, I was the one who stepped up,” Anderson said.

In less than three weeks, voters in Kalamazoo will decide the fate of the ordinance that seeks to add anti-discrimination protections for city residents who are gay or transgender. The measure has inspired an intense, if mostly underground, opposition.

The One Kalamazoo campaign headquarters is located on a busy intersection in downtown Kalamazoo, and on Wednesday afternoon Anderson was surrounded by the tell-tale signs of a humming campaign — numerous clipboards, stacks of flyers, a dry erase board, a nearby table with snacks. The two-term, married commissioner, a member of the group’s steering committee, said he thinks it’s important for the city “to go on record being a welcoming and inclusive place to live.”

Narda Beauchamp, a retired teacher and also a member of the One Kalamazoo steering committee, comes to the campaign with more personal motivation. In a recent interview, the mother of five children explains why her two lesbian daughters have moved away.

“After college, our two daughters planned to stay in Kalamazoo. They grew up here and started their careers here,” she said. “But after a lot of heartfelt conversations with the family, they told my husband and I that they need to move to another state and another city that already provided protections for housing, employment and public accommodations,” Beauchamp said, listing the kinds of discrimination Ordinance 1856 would outlaw if passed by voters.

“The other three siblings can’t understand why they automatically have these protections just because they’re straight,” she added.

That experience, not to mention her years in the classroom, drove the Beauchamp household to action.

“My husband and I have chosen to be very active, trying to make sure that all of our children are treated fairly.”

Kalamazoo City Commissioner David Anderson

But teasing out the extent of what ordinance proponents consider unfair treatment — discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity — proves difficult.

Anderson points to a 2007 survey funded by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department entitled “Sexual Orientation and Housing Discrimination in Michigan” that found at least half a dozen instances of discrimination based on sexual orientation. That report was released by the Michigan’s Fair Housing Center.

A recent story published in the Kalamazoo Gazette summarized two other efforts aimed at documenting discrimination:

The Triangle Foundation of Michigan, a statewide advocate for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) issues, said it received 298 reports of “anti-GLBT crimes” in 2007, and 72 of those were discrimination cases. The 2007 report, the latest data available, does not indicate whether any of those occurred in Kalamazoo.

Locally, the Kalamazoo Gay Lesbian Resource Center reported handling 20 complaints/referrals from April 2007 through May 2009. Of those, six alleged employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and several others were from gay residents who said they felt harassed by neighbors.

Anderson isn’t fazed by the lack of more data on discrimination faced by those who are gay or transgender.

“I can tell you this,” he says leaning forward, “if you don’t have a mechanism where you record data, well then you will not have any data.”

He hopes Ordinance 1856 will help address that. But meanwhile, Kai Phillips, a first-time candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission and member of the advisory committee for the group opposing it, Kalamazoo Citizens Voting No to Special Rights Discrimination, said in an interview it’s not necessary.

“The gay community was already covered by existing statutes,” Phillips said, noting that the ordinance was poorly written and poorly planned out. But the 21-year-old former Web and software development firm managing director doesn’t quite fit the profile of the stereotypical gay-rights antagonist.

“I should preface anything I say by saying I think that everyone, including gays and lesbians, should have equal rights,” he said. “My best friend is actually a gay man from Colorado. He’s actually visiting me in a few weeks.”

Citing his business background, Phillips points to what he sees as one major problem with the measure.

“Let’s say a gay person has more qualifications, but maybe they don’t quite have the background the company is looking for,” he said. “I don’t think it’s right for government to tell any business that this is who you should or shouldn’t hire. I think it absolutely wrong to do that.”

Ordinance 1856 doesn’t call for affirmative action in hiring, but even so Phillips maintains that negative consequences for businesses are sure to follow if it passes.

While he says he’s worked with many gay people — “and they’re great employees,” he stressed — he thinks the exemption for religious institutions written into the ordinance isn’t sufficient. “It doesn’t go far enough. It may protect certain churches,” he said, “but how about the Salvation Army? They won’t hire gays and lesbians. There are so many other organizations that are either religious or semi-religious that could be hurt.”

But oddly enough, it’s not gay men or lesbians who seem to be the biggest target for the organized opposition to the ordinance. Instead, door hangers, flyers, and most recently, accounts of robo-calls to absentee voters aim to persuade voters that transgender men who present as female or who are in the process of becoming female would pose a threat to women using a women’s restroom.

Predictably, that meme falls flat on Beauchamp’s ears.

“The opposition just doesn’t understand what it means to be a transgender person. And I think it’s not uncommon when you don’t understand things, you become fearful of them,” she said. “But I believe if they really understood how difficult it is for a transgender person in our society, that they would have more understanding and compassion.”

Asked if he knows of any instances of transgender men demanding to use women’s restrooms, Phillips draws a blank.

Recent voting history in the city of Kalamazoo, home to both Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College, could suggest that Ordinance 1856 is cruising to an easy victory in November.

Back in 2001, city voters endorsed health care benefits for municipal employees’ same-sex partners. In 2004, voters strongly opposed the statewide constitutional amendment on the ballot that year defining civil marriage in Michigan as a the union of one man and one woman. Statewide, the amendment passed with nearly 60 percent of the vote, but in Kalamazoo it was voted down by 58 percent of city voters.

Given that history, shouldn’t passing Ordinance 1856 be a slam dunk?

“I don’t think it’s a slam dunk,” Anderson remarked. Proponents of the marriage amendment “were very successful in a statewide focus,” he said. “Now it’s all about Kalamazoo.”

Address listed on the Web site of Kalamazoo Citizens Voting No to Special Rights Discrimination

The opponents of the anti-discrimination ordinance, Anderson adds, include “a very organized and experienced group of people that are supported by the American Family Association, a national organization that happens to have a Michigan chapter. They help local communities organize to defeat these kinds of ordinances all around the country.”

The American Family Association of Michigan did not return several calls seeking comment for this story. Nor did leaders of Kalamazoo Citizens Voting No to Special Rights Discrimination, including Kalamazoo County Treasurer Mary Balkema.

At the address listed on the local group’s Web site, little campaign activity was evident.

At the front desk of the office, home to a trucking business, a polite middle-aged woman didn’t say much when asked about campaign literature or signs.

“I’m sorry,” she said repeatedly. “I’m just stuck here.”

Adding that this location was mainly used as a mailing address for the group, she said that Balkema was declining any interview request.

“I think Mary was worried that you weren’t a supporter,” she said. “She just wasn’t interested.”