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The Michigan Messenger going forward

By Staff Report | 11.16.11

I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]

Colorado-based abstinence program provided false and misleading information to Michigan students

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By Todd A. Heywood | 11.16.11

An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.

Class action lawsuit filed against MERS over unpaid taxes

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By Todd A. Heywood | 11.15.11

Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.

Schuette fights important mercury regulations

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By Eartha Jane Melzer | 11.14.11

Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.

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Traverse City will vote on gay rights ordinance

By Eartha Jane Melzer | 06.30.11 | 2:29 pm

Opponents of a Traverse City ordinance that protects against anti-LGBT discrimination in housing and employment have collected enough signatures for a referendum on the measure.

In October the city commission passed an ordinance that bans employers and landlords from discriminating against employees and renters on the basis of sexual orientation.

Opponents of the ordinance claim that it is provides for unnecessary, special treatment for gays.

Paul Nepote, a leader of the effort to repeal the ordinance, told the Traverse City Record Eagle that he and his associates have turned in referendum petitions with 600 signatures, 482 valid signatures are needed.

“Despite the potential for controversy, getting an issue decided directly by the voters is never a bad thing,” Mayor Chris Bzdok said on his blog Plan for TC. “I do hope residents will remember the two predictions made by opponents of the ordinance last summer and fall”:

1. that it would drive away business from Traverse City
2. that the city would persecute people for their religious or personal beliefs.

It’s been 9 months since the ordinance went into effect. The complete failure of these predictions to come true is really worth thinking about.

Bzdok has predicted that voters will uphold the ordinance.

Comments

  • http://www.facebook.com/groups/straightpride?ap=1 Paul Nepote

     
    Hundreds of Traverse City
    voters ignored the Homosexuals warning and threat of retaliation by signing the
    petitions to allow TC citizens to vote on the ordinance that bestowed Special
    Protections to homosexuals in Traverse
    City.  The
    following threat was published by M’lynn Hartwell on the Homosexual website http://www.tcequality.Com.  “Once you sign Mr. Nepote’s petition, even if
    you later discover that you have been duped and deceived and/or you change your
    mind based upon new information—you cannot remove your name from the petition.
    You’re stuck with it”.
    The only people who were duped and deceived were the Traverse City
    Commissioners who passed a Special Rights Ordinance protecting those who engage
    in same sex activities solely at the urging of Gay City Commissioner Jim
    Carruthers and the cities one hundred percent homosexual activist Traverse City
    Human Rights Commission. No matter what the outcome of the November ballot
    reveals, at the very least the people will have been given their Right to
    Vote.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Patrick-Irish/1615152770 Patrick Irish

      You know, if you knew half of what you think you do you might be somewhat intelligent, however, by your comments you have no idea what you are talking about… 

    • Anonymous

      It was actually a Clerk, an attorney, and the Elections Commission for the State of Michigan that told me that there is no legal mechanism to remove your name from a petition. It was not a threat published by me, as Paul deceptively mischaracterizes it, but rather a fact under Michigan law. I have no need or desire to engage in imaginative innuendo. Facts suffice quite sufficiently.

    • Anonymous

      The problem with having a vote on the issue is that at times the majority will vote against the protection of the minority.  In American democracy the rights of the individual need to be protected despite the opinions of the majority.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Dibert/100000856504338 Steve Dibert

    Traverse City is like a David Lynch version of Green Acres.  Its filled with a lot of angry ignorant white people who think they know everything and know nothing.  

  • Erin Moody

    I feel sorry for the beautiful Traverse City. I hope that those people wishing to take equal rights away from those different from themselves might see with eyes unclouded by hate. I’m embarrassed for those that signed that petition; they’re letting the world know that they believe LGBT people deserve to receive discrimination that other minorities have been protected against. I guess I was silly to think that Traverse City is a progressive and friendly place to live.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Cameron/1542986164 Robert Cameron

    PLEASE,
    simply tell everyone you know = “shut up & Vote”!

    these misunderstanding mental midgets will not prevail.
     

  • http://www.facebook.com/groups/straightpride?ap=1 Paul Nepote

    This guy is not fit to be a City Commissioner

     

    Traverse City’s homosexual city commissioner Jim
    Carruthers ordered the city clerks office to provide him and the homosexual
    community copies of every referendum petition that Traverse City Opposing a Gay
    Agenda Ordinance presented to the Traverse City, City Clerks Office on June 28th
    2011.  He stopped by the office and
    picked up the papers, about 260 pages, or a 6” stack, containing about 620
    signatures.

    I am guessing he has some high minded destination for
    his newly obtained treasure.

    Better yet, I would assume by his past record of
    “gay’stapo” efforts that he could not wait to share them with M’lynn Hartwell
    and other members of Traverse City’s “gay’stapo”
    who will try to find some way to punish those who disagree with their gay
    agenda ordinance.  This guy is not fit to
    be a City Commissioner.

    None of the other City Commissioners
    requested one single copy of the petitions.

  • http://www.facebook.com/groups/straightpride?ap=1 Paul Nepote

    People of Traverse
    City need to wake
    up:

     

    In my opinion Gay City Commissioner
    Jim Carruthers and the City of Traverse
    City tried to use illegal language on
    the November ballot question concerning the Special Rights Ordinance the City
    Commission passed last fall. The ordinance bestowed special protected class
    status on those who practice same sex intercourse in
    Traverse
    City. 
    It is my belief that the City Government knowingly tried to circumvent
    state election law in hopes of gaining an unfair advantage at the polls.  For some reason our local government seems to
    be hell bent on the promotion of homosexual issues at the urging of Traverse
    City Commissioner Jim Carruthers, and our infamous Traverse City Human Rights
    Commission.  People of
    Traverse
    City need to wake up, when ever you give
    Special Rights to a specified group you are taking rights and personal freedoms
    from others.

Categories & Tags: Civil Rights| LGBT| | | | |