While lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people saw gains at the federal level in 2010, Michigan saw the ugly side of anti-gay animus with straight pride celebrations in local schools, a rash of national and local teen suicides and the death of LGBT-specific legislation in the Republican-controlled state Senate.

LGBT issues make national strides

On a national level, the LGBT community saw a host of actions by the Obama Administration and the Democratically controlled Congress. While only one LGBT-specific piece of federal legislation passed, the administration moved to address discrimination against the community through policy changes.

The big win for the community was the passage of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ repeal legislation in the lame duck session this month. That legislation clears the way for the President and the Department of Defense to develop and implement rules and policies to allow openly gay Americans to serve in the armed forces. The legislation repealed a 17-year-old law that prohibited openly gay service members from serving in the armed forces.

On a policy level, the Obama administration made strides on several levels.

First, the administration appointed Amanda Simpson as Senior Technical Advisor to the Department of Commerce. Simpson is a transgender woman.

In addition, the Obama Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it would require HUD contractors to comply with not only federal nondiscrimination laws, but also with local ones which protect on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.

Meanwhile, the Department of Education held a conference call with reporters to announce that it would crack down on schools that allow bullying on the basis of sexual orientation. That announcement was quickly followed by an announcement the department was investigating the Ogemaw school district over allegations an out lesbian student was forced to drop out of school because of bullying and harassment.

And finally, in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy released by the Office of National AIDS Policy in the White House included a call for laws protecting the LGBT community from discrimination.

Bullying deaths draw national, local action

A rash of nationally covered teen suicides, many of them related to anti-gay harassment, prompted public mourning and increased calls for anti-bullying legislation.

At Michigan State University, hundreds gathered in early October for a candle light vigil to remember those who had been lost to suicide and to send the message that students were not alone on the campus.

At Oakland University, students gathered for a more somber remembrance as they recalled their friend Corey Jackson, 19. Jackson’s body was found in a campus wooded area where he had apparently hung himself.

The suicides, however, did nothing to push the state’s anti-bullying legislation through the state Senate, where Republicans declared it dead on Nov. 2 following a landslide night for Republican candidates in the state. Prior to that, State Sen. Wayne Kuipers (R-Holland) was chastised by Gov. Granholm for claiming the bill was stalled over the definition of bullying.

But activists saw a glimmer of light for anti-bullying legislation in the next legislative session when Gov.-elect Rick Snyder’s pick to head the Michigan State Police said she would be a “strong supporter of addressing bullying in our state.”

Straight Pride celebrations, products appear in the state

Michigan Messenger also reported this year on the appearance of a small straight pride movement rearing its head in Michigan. The first report came during a Tea Party Express rally at the State Capitol. There, a t-shirt proclaiming “straight pride” was offered for sale. While the shirt was for sale on a table next to a vendor who donated some of his proceeds to the Tea Party Express, he denied the shirt was being sold by him.

In another move, students from three rural mid-Michigan school districts created a Facebook “straight pride” day and event. The movement was soundly condemned by school officials as well as national and local LGBT leaders. The event went on at the schools without incident.

LGBT politics

During this past year’s election, the LGBT community saw itself not only represented with out politicians, but also targeted by politicians and activist groups.

In the August primary, Democrat Dale Kildee (D-Flint) saw a challenge from openly gay resident Scott Withers. Withers lost his bid to unseat Kildee, who went on to win the November election.

But generally, when LGBT issues came up in the past year in politics it was a negative. The negativity began with Rep. Paul Scott (R-Grand Blanc) targeting transgender people in his announcement that he would seek the Republican nomination for Secretary of State. Paul continued to support his anti-transgender crusade throughout his race.

He was beaten by Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson. But Johnson herself was criticized by the LGBT community when she issued an about face on community issues.

The campaign season also saw controversy from the Campaign for Michigan Families, a conservative group headed by American Family Association of Michigan President Gary Glenn. Earlier in the year, Glenn was chastised by an Allegan County newspaper for “creating a climate of homophobic hysteria” in the county with his group’s attacks on a Allegan County District Judge William A. Baillargeon. Baillargeon had been involved with the Triangle Foundation and Affirmations, two LGBT organizations in the Detroit area.

The Allegan chastisement, however, did not stop Glenn or the Campaign for Michigan Families. At the end of October, the group launched an attack ad targeting openly lesbian candidate for state representative Toni Sessoms. This lead to a powerful, ironic and funny YouTube video from Sessoms countering the allegations in the ad. Sessoms lost her bid.

But no issue garnered more attention than a battle between the elected student leader of the University of Michigan, openly gay student Chris Armstrong, and conservative Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell heated up. Shirvell ran a blog attacking Armstrong and had shown up as his off campus house and various other events. Shirvell’s behavior made national headlines when Anderson Cooper featured his story on CNN.

Armstrong sought a personal protection order against Shirvell, though he ultimately dropped the bid, and U of M barred Shirvell from the campus. That ban was ultimately changed to allow him to be on campus but not have contact with Armstrong. While Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican, started by defending Shirvell, he ultimately brought administrative charges against him. The hearing lead to Shirvell’s dismissal from the AG’s office for using state of Michigan equipment to blog about Armstrong and lying to state investigators.

State and local officials struggle to move LGBT equality issues

And finally, the state saw a series of state and local policy moves to push a pro-LGBT equality movement forward.

On a state level, the Michigan Department of Corrections booted an anti-gay ministry — Corduroy Ministries — out of its ministry programs after the Lansing group lost its national affiliation with the ex-gay group Exodus International.

In addition to the MDOC move, the State Civil Service Commission, took up and then tabled a proposal to extend health care benefits to Other Eligible Individuals. OEI is a policy program created by Michigan State University and cloned at other locations to address a 2008 state Supreme Court ruling that found same-sex partner benefit programs violated a Constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2004 which made marriage a union between one man and one woman.

In East Lansing, the week after the SCSC tabled its OEI proposal until the new year, the East Lansing City Council directed staff to prepare to implement such a program in July for city employees.

In Holland, officials there were asked to consider an ordinance protecting LGBT people from discrimination in the conservative community. The community had come under fire after Hope College, located in the city, refused to allow Oscar Award winning writer Dustin Lance Black to appear on campus. Two groups were formed out of that movement. The Holland Council sent the proposal to its Human Relations Commission, which sent it back to the body in November.

The year also saw the merger of the state’s two statewide LGBT organizations, Michigan Equality and Triangle Foundation. The new group called Equality Michigan also saw the exit of executive director Alicia Skillman and the appointment of Denise Brogan-Kator. Brogan-Kator is a trangender activist and lawyer with business experience.

Photo from flickr: Eddie~S

“Here in Michigan and across the nation, suicides among young people who have been subjected to bullying demonstrate the need for anti-bullying legislation,” Granholm said in a Good Friday press release. “Just last month in the Upper Peninsula, a young girl committed suicide. A contributing factor may have been alleged bullying by a classmate. Protecting young people should be and must be our number one concern.”

Granholm has long supported the legislation. She has specifically lobbied for an inclusive law which would enumerate, or list, protected groups. But, while the governor is renewing her calls for the legislation, her office backed off the stand for the comprehensive enumerated legislation.

“The legislation the governor proposed in 2006 enumerated specific reasons for which students may be bullied, but we stand ready to work with the legislature on crafting meaningful legislation that addresses this problem,” said Granholm spokeswoman Tiffany Brown.

That move is important. The legislation has been hamstrung by groups like the American Family Association of Michigan because of the enumerated, or listed, protected classes. That list includes sexual orientation and gender identity. The AFA claims passage of the legislation would be the first time Michigan law recognized either category as a protected class. That, they say, is part of a broader “homosexual agenda.”

In the lame duck session of 2008, in the wee hours of the morning, the Republican controlled Senate almost passed anti-bullying legislation. That compromise legislation stripped the enumerations out of the bill. And while this was done to appease Sen. Alan Cropsey (R-DeWitt), it was not enough; Cropsey refused to allow the bill to go to the floor for a vote and the bill died.

An attempt by Sen. Glenn Anderson (D-Westland) to attach the legislation as amendment to a bill in 2009 also failed in the Senate.

That compromise bill was approved by the Safe Schools Coalition, of which Triangle Foundation was a part. When news of the late night backroom compromise broke, Michigan Equality a Lansing-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights political organization, and the Michigan Democratic LGBTA Caucus criticized the deal.

The in-fighting led to a schism. Since then, Triangle Foundation and Michigan Equality have begun a merger, and the new organization, as yet unnamed, supports the compromise legislation, though it would prefer to see the enumerated legislation adopted into law.

There are two bills pending in the state Senate. The first, introduced by Anderson, the Democratic Senator from Westland, includes enumerated protected classes. The second, introduced by Sen. Ron Jelinek (R-Three Oaks Twp.) does not include enumeration. Both lawmakers say they expect anti-bullying legislation to pass the legislature by the end of the year.

The renewed focus on the legislation by the governor was applauded by advocates.

“Triangle Foundation extends our gratitude to Gov. Granholm and we are encouraged by her renewed call for the adoption of safe schools legislation in Michigan,” said Alicia Skillman, executive director of the Detroit based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights group. “We have lost too many children to bullying. It is our hope that the legislators will take notice and acknowledge that Michigan needs to take this crucial step to protect all students in Michigan. We would welcome the opportunity to work with school districts to assist with this much needed change.”

“I personally thank Gov. Granholm for bringing this to our legislators and communities attention,” said Kevin Epling, co-director of BullyPolice USA. The legislation, if passed, will be named after his son, Matt Epling, who committed suicide at 14 after being bullied.

“She is absolutely right that our legislators should act when they return, but will they? We’ve seen nothing but stall tactics of revisions that never materialize (or are so flimsy in content and structure that they wouldn’t pass for a High School government class assignment), demand upon demand for changes (disregarding the co-operative work that has been put into the bill, and bordering on bullying behavior itself) and false promises of support which fall short of what our children need.”

Epling’s cynicism may be on point. While Jelinek’s office has assured Michigan Messenger that meetings have been scheduled — but canceled — to arrange the timing on the anti-bullying legislation, no solid target date for passage has been set. And Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop’s office is not sounding a note of reconciliation on the issue.

In an interview Monday, Bishop Spokesperson Matt Marsden told the Michigan Information Research Service (MIRS) a subscription only news letter at the capitol, that the renewed focus was “political.”

“This is politically useful for the Governor right now,” said Marsden.

He said the Senate was focused “on other areas.”

And Gary Glenn, president of the AFA Michigan, also did not delay in attacking the renewed call for action by the governor.

“Aside from once again using a Christian holiday to promote her homosexual activist allies’ political agenda, the fact is that Jennifer Granholm could have signed a comprehensive all-inclusive anti-bullying bill into law years ago that would have prohibited all bullying against all students for all reasons, period,” Glenn said in a press release. “All she’s had to do — all she has to do now — is exert a little leadership and influence with her own party and political allies, and it would likely pass both houses unanimously.”

Glenn failed to mention the failure of the unenumerated legislation in the 2008 lame duck session.

Calling the news of the death of Kimberly Linczeski “upsetting and frustrating,” Kevin Epling, co-director of BullyPolice USA, said that if the anti-bullying law been passed in December of 2008, the suicide might have been prevented.

Photo from flickr: Eddie~S

The legislation, which if passed would be called Matt’s Law, is named after Epling’s 14-year-old son who committed suicide after enduring bullying in the East Lansing Public Schools. The phenomenon of suicides as a way to address bullying has been labeled Bullycide by Epling and others in the field.

Staffers for Sen. Ron Jelinek (R-Three Oaks Township) said Monday the senator will meet later this week with Education Committee Chair Sen. Wayne Kuipers (R-Holland) and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) to discuss schedules related to passing the legislation.

The Marquette Mining Journal reported Thursday that Linczeski’s suicide occurred earlier this month. Ontonagon Sheriff officials told the newspaper the alleged role of bullying in the suicide was being investigated.

“[Ontonagon Sheriff John] Gravier said no suicide note was found in the home, but police are looking at computers used at school and other sources to conclusively determine whether she left such a message elsewhere.

Gravier said initial interviews with students after the incident led them to look into the possibility bullying at the school may have been a contributing cause in Kimberly’s death.”

Linczeski’s mother told the newspaper her daughter had been the target of bullying for “months.”

School officials, while not dismissing the issue of bullying, are also not addressing the issue. In a prepared statement to the Journal, School Superintendent Gray Webber said the only person who knew why Linczeski committed suicide was Linczeski and that anything beyond that was “speculation.”

Michigan is one of only nine states in the country without comprehensive anti-bullying legislation. Advocates have been pushing for such a law for nearly a decade. During the 2008 lame duck session in December, lawmakers very nearly passed the legislation. But conservative Republican Sen. Alan Cropsey (R-DeWitt) stopped the bill from getting a vote on the Senate floor. The compromise bill, which Cropsey rejected, would have stripped out a list of enumerated characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender identity, that made the bill controversial.

That compromise language resulted in a schism in the Safe Schools Coalition.

In September 2009, Sen. Glenn Anderson, a Democrat from Westland, attempted to pass the legislation he sponsored. He brought it up for a vote, in an attempt to circumvent the Senate Education Committee. The legislation failed to pass.

Bernadette Brown, policy director for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group Triangle Foundation, said Michigan should follow the lead of Massachusetts. The northeastern state’s legislature unanimously passed anti-bullying legislation last week. That law is headed to the governor’s desk and if signed would mean there are only eight states without anti-bullying laws, including Michigan.

“After the second bullycide occurred in Massachusetts, they decided that was enough,” Brown said in an e-mail statement. “There have been at least six bullycides in Michigan and the Senate still has not acted on Matt’s Safe School Law. How many children need to die in Michigan before we have had enough?”

Megan Brown, a spokesperson for Gov. Jennifer Granholm said the suicide was “heart-breaking,” and that the governor continues to support the legislation.

“This is one more tragic example of why this important legislation is needed,” Brown said.

State Sen. Michael Prusi (D-Ispheming) is not only the Senate Minority Leader, he also represents the district where Linczeski was allegedly bullied and committed suicide.

“The old ‘kids will be kids’ answer doesn’t cut it anymore,” Prusi said in an e-mail to Michigan Mesenger, noting he was uncertain if the legislation would have prevented the suicide in his district. “There should be hearings held on the bill with an honest attempt made to resolve whatever problems the majority has with the legislation. Just sitting on it ignores an issue that cries out for action.”

Prusi said Messenger should call Kuipers who chairs the Senate Education Committee and “ask why the bill has not had a hearing yet.”

Calls to Kuipers office were not returned by press time.

The legislation garnered renewed focus briefly in December as lawmakers worked on education reform legislation in order to qualify for a slice of $400 million in federal education cash. At the time, lawmakers said the legislation could be a perfect fit in relation to Race to the Top reforms working their way through the legislature, particularly since U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is a strong proponent of anti-bullying laws. The RTTT program was also designed to address drop out rates and studies have found that students who are bullied are more likely to skip school and/or drop out of school altogether.

Michigan’s application for the federal cash was rejected earlier this month.

When asked if Michigan’s lack of anti-bullying laws impacted the state’s application, Brown, a spokesperson for Gov. Jennifer Granholm, said only: “We will receive feedback on our application from U.S. Department of Education in early April. That is our starting point for round 2. We are not speculating on what individual reforms would have made a difference until then.”

And while the legislation was approved with a promise from the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Roy Schmidt (D-Grand Rapids), that he was open to adding amendments on the House floor, his office appeared to back off on that promise Wednesday morning.

Rep. Roy Schmidt prepares to testify for his HIV consent bill, joined by representatives of Spectrum Health

“You never know (if someone will try to amend it on the House floor). I mean anyone can introduce an amendment,” Kettle said.

Kettle’s message directly contradicts the understanding of Health Policy Committee Chairman Marc Corriveau (D-Northville), who only agreed to move the legislation forward because he believed he could work with Schmidt to amend the legislation on the floor to address any concerns.

And Detroit Democratic Rep. Jimmy Womack says Schmidt had already begun discussions with him about amending the legislation to address concerns.

“It’s not what Rep. Schmidt said to me,” Womack said in a phone interview. “We even exchanged cell numbers. And I got a text message from him about this.”

At least one member of the Health Policy Committee, Rep. Barb Byrum (D-Onondaga), said Wednesday afternoon that had she been aware of the concerns about the legislation, reported in the Michigan Messenger on Monday, it might have changed her vote.

“More than likely (this information would have changed my vote). If nothing else it would have given me more pause,” said Byrum. “It’s concerning you’re bringing these issues to light and why they weren’t discussed at all in committee today? What I am going to have to do is contact the bill’s sponsor and find out what’s going on and why these issues were not addressed.”

Members of the HIV-positive community, as well as representatives from Triangle Foundation and the HIV testing community, have opposed the legislation on several grounds. Among those concerns are the removal of required pre- and post-test counseling, “buried” consent for the testing in general medical treatment consents, potential insurance coverage problems, and legal issues related to Michigan’s felony HIV disclosure laws.

In written testimony submitted to the committee, Triangle Foundation’s Bernadette Brown, director of policy, said the group supported the legislation but only with an amendment.

“We come before you today to express our support for the substitute for HB 4583, with an amendment,” the statement said. “Section 5133 (2) requires that the physician or health facility document the provision of patient consent in the medical record. We request that the patient be allowed to also document her or his consent in writing, such as signing or initialing the statement written by the physician (or the relevant health care provider), in the medical record.”

Schmidt’s chief of staff said that request was a no-go.

“All that does is put [the legislation] back where it was,” Kettle said.

Under the proposed changes, a patient will sign a general medical consent which includes permission to test for HIV. If a physician decides to run an HIV test, they will have to get verbal consent before ordering the test and note it in the file. However, a patient is not allowed to verbally decline an HIV test. Patients who do not wish to be tested will be required to put that in writing.

Asked if that requirement were not creating more barriers to people declining the test, Kettle said it was, but that was OK.

“Don’t you think it’s better? That a doctor says, ‘OK you are adult and you are declining this test, I want you to sign something to acknowledge that so I am not responsible, because as your doctor I am recommending the test?’” Kettle said. Michigan law does not require a patient to formerly decline any other medical testing and procedures in writing.

Mark Peterson, a spokesman for Michigan Positive Action Coalition (MI Poz), a group of HIV-positive people and their supporters in Michigan, said the legislation was not needed.

“I think the problem with this legislation is that it is an answer seeking a problem,” he said, noting that hospitals and other medical groups in Southeast Michigan have been complying with the current law, which requires anyone ordering an HIV test to provide a patient with pre-and post-test counseling, as well as sign a specific document on the issue created by the Michigan Department of Community Health.

“It does concern me that we are eliminating that requirement,” said Byrum.

“You’re right, the cumbersome counseling piece is gone,” Kettle said. “There has to be an element of good medical practice that a doctor is going to have an adult conversation about the test before administering it.”

Spectrum Health Systems, which initiated the legislative re-write, has acknowledged that it does not currently have a policy in place forcing physicians system wide to follow the current law. When asked why, Spectrum spokesman Bruce Rossman told Michigan Messenger in April 2009 that the current consent booklet was “an obstacle” to testing.

Kettle says mandating that physicians inform positive patients of the HIV disclosure law will be a “chase away deal” for those being tested. He says informing people that a positive result will put a person in jeopardy of criminal liability will cause them to decline to be tested.

Brown disputed the claim that the counseling requirements dissuade people from being tested: “One claim is that counseling and informed written consent is a barrier to testing. We are unable to find any systematic, peer reviewed studies demonstrating that informed written consent by the patient (or counseling by the health care provider) is a barrier to testing.”

And Kaye McDuffie, an HIV-testing counselor and health educator in Lansing, says studies have shown that the pre-and post-test counseling sessions are important tools in prevention. She says without those counseling sessions, patients with risk factors are more likely to continue to engage in those behaviors.

Peterson also expressed concern that many people who test positive in a clinical setting may not get referrals to infectious disease specialists.

“We know that the average for people who are not given access to patient services in delaying access to treatment is about two years,” he said.

Grand Rapids resident Ellen Roelofs, 23, is a member of MI Poz. She says in an e-mail to Messenger her access to care was limited after she was diagnosed in 2003 by the Kent County Health Department.

“I got tested at Kent County Health Department,” she said. “[The] County did not give me a direct referral or tell me what I needed to do to get in care, what they did was gave me a packet of fliers and pamphlets which, I believe, had info about McAuley (the local clinic) in it. I didn’t know what to do with my enormous packet of strange and foreign agencies, terms, etc, and ended up just making an appointment with my family doctor. The family doctor wasn’t very knowledgeable about HIV, but gave me the name of McAuley – no phone number or address, no call from his office to theirs or anything like that; he just told me the name, and it took me 3 months or so to actually find McAuley’s contact info and set up an appointment for myself. I would have pursued it faster myself if I had perceived an immediate threat to my health at the time, but either way, it was a bit more difficult than it should have been. I was a minor at the time and really should have been given an appointment with a case manager when I got my results. And no one told me about the felony law until a couple years after that.”

“That example,” says Womack, “is why people need to be counseled. There has to be some post test counseling.”

Supporters of the law say routinizing HIV-testing is a good thing for the state and public health. They compared the revisions in state law to making HIV-testing similar to testing for cancer or diabetes. Schmidt’s chief of staff Kettle echoed that reasoning in a phone conversation.

But McDuffie says there are key differences between finding out you are HIV-positive and having cancer or diabetes.

“You can’t do that without training the medical providers and personnel, because whether people want to believe it or not, HIV and AIDS is not like other diseases — in terms of stigma, in terms of discrimination, in terms of feelings of hopelessness that many people feel when they are initially diagnosed,” she said.

Triangle Foundation has also noted that in its annual hate crimes report due out next month, the advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, will announce that Michigan saw a 55 percent increase in the number of HIV related discrimination complaints in 2009 over 2008.

In addition to the emotional impact of the diagnosis, being HIV-positive exposes a person to the possibility of criminal liability. No other disease in Michigan carries that kind of liability. Current law mandates that public health officials inform those who test positive for the virus about the law, but it can often take weeks or months for a specialist to contact a person with a positive result.

Meanwhile, members of the committee that voted for the bill are complaining that they did not get all the facts before the vote.

“The testimony was that the only change was the form that was going to be signed,” says Byrum. “It’s very unfortunate because it seems as though you are bringing up points that were never discussed in committee today, which is very concerning to me.”

While both groups have focused on equal rights for the LGBT community, they’ve generally gone about it in different ways. Michigan Equality was originally formed as a 501(c)(4) organization, which meant they could lobby the government, and their focus was primarily legislative.

Triangle Foundation, on the other hand, tended to focus more on educational, civic and legal matters. They often involved themselves in legal defense of individuals and victim services in general, as well as outreach programs.

In fact, Michigan Equality was formed in part by a group of Triangle board members who were frustrated by the pace of change in Michigan and wanted to push the legislative agenda and make changes in the law. But in recent years, Triangle has also gotten more involved in legislative work and Michigan Equality has gotten more involved in educational and civic engagement work, bringing them closer together in terms of their agendas.

In a press release, the boards of the two groups were positive about the impact the merger would have:

Although Michigan Equality and Triangle Foundation have separate histories, we have always shared one common objective: to fight for LGBT equality in Michigan. Together we are uniquely positioned to influence local and statewide policy, while also providing victim services, education and outreach as well as organizing community-building events. We remain dedicated to each and every one of these objectives now that we are operating as one.

Bringing Triangle Foundation and Michigan Equality together will result in a stronger, more effective organization better suited to meet the challenges we face in our state.

The new policy arose after City Attorney Brigham Smith released the HIV-positive status of a man arrested in a May sex-sting operation in Lansing’s Fenner Park. The status was in a police report detailing the arrest which Michigan Messenger, along with Triangle Foundation, Lansing Association for Human Rights and City Pulse newspaper requested.

The new policy is available on the City Attorney’s website, reports the Lansing State Journal.

Activists at the time said the release of the HIV-positive status violated a stringent, but untested, state law. In August, Lansing Mayor Virgil Bernero asked Mike Cox, Michigan’s attorney general, to review the release to make sure no laws had been violated. The AG’s office determined that no violations had occurred.

That ruling was called “scary” by State Sen. Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing), and other leaders in the state expressed concern about the privacy of medical information.

Smith created an advisory board to help him craft the new policy. But even that group was controversial when it met behind closed doors to develop the draft.

Following Smith’s exoneration by the Attorney General’s office, he declared the city would no longer release medical information. However, his office turned around and released more medical information in documents related to a false report of a gay bashing.

Kalamazoo’s pitched back-and-forth struggle over a proposed anti-discrimination ordinance dominated 2009′s gay rights debate in Michigan. The final result was a ringing victory for LGBT activists that reverberated nationally.

The year began with opponents of the measure submitting enough petition signatures to call for a public vote. Prior to that, Kalamazoo’s city commission had voted unanimously to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. But city commissioners repealed that ordinance and set in motion the campaign over the newly drafted Ordinance 1856.

Well-oiled campaigns emerged on both sides of the issue, and both waged high-profile, often emotional efforts at swaying key voting blocs, like African Americans as well as religious voters. Opponents attempted to gain traction with the unfounded smear that if Ordinance 1856 passed, transgender women would morph into pedophiles preying on young girls in public bathrooms. It didn’t work. On Nov. 3, voters overwhelmingly approved the ordinance by a whopping 23 point margin. The hard-fought LGBT victory even prompted some state lawmakers in Lansing to once again look into extending the same basic employment and housing protections statewide.

2. Marriage equality movement

With a Constitutional amendment barring marriages other than those of one man and one woman, Michigan saw some movement to rescind the amendment and allow same-sex partners to marry. In a rally in May, activists called for a repeal effort by 2012. And in June, during a speech to the annual pride celebration at the Capitol, State Rep. and House Speaker Pro-tem Pam Byrnes (D-Lyndon Township) announced she would introduce legislation to repeal the state’s marriage ban. She did so in November, introducing a package of bills to repeal the amendment, and amend state laws to expand the definition of marriage. Those bills have seen no movement in the House.

3. Anti-bullying legislation tactics split LGBT community

After nearly a decade of fighting for a comprehensive law to prevent bullying in Michigan schools, the LBGT community’s leading organizations found themselves standing on differing sides of political strategy. The rift was formed when it came out that the Triangle Foundation and others in the Safe Schools Coalition approved a last minute strategy to accept a bill which would not enumerate, or list, protected categories.

The result of this event was a community divided to the point State Sen. Glenn Anderson (D-Westland) said the rift was damaging the political chances of the legislation.

And while the rift continues, anti-bullying advocates have continued to press the issue, including a move to pass it during the budget battle in September, and discussions to pass the legislation as part of Race to the Top reforms. The bill has not passed either house, but Sen. Ron Jelinek (R-Three Oaks) says he expects it to pass by the end of 2010.

4. Elliot Larsen amendment and bias crimes legislation moved out of House committee

A move to amend the state’s law prohibiting discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity passed the House Judiciary Committee in November. The bill has been introduced for over a decade. House Judiciary Chair Mark Meadows (D-East Lansing) said the move to approve the legislation was inspired in part by the victory of LGBT activists and supporters in Kalamazoo the day before.

Earlier in the year, the House Judiciary Committee also sent legislation to amend the state’s ethnic intimidation act to include a host of groups. Among those groups were veterans, the disabled and the LGBT community. Extending the laws to protect the LGBT community, however, triggered a battle with groups like the American Family Association of Michigan.

Passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act on the federal level left State Sen. Hansen Clark (D-Detroit) calling for Michigan to pass the bias crimes law.

Neither bill has been voted on by the entire House, and no date has been set for such a vote.

5. City of Jackson considers, rejects non-discrimination ordinance

While the City of Kalamazoo was preparing for a show down at the polls over nondiscrimination protections, some city leaders in Jackson tried to get the city of Jackson to pass a similar ordinance. And while supporters organized door-to-door signature drives, opponents also collected signatures. In the end, the city council rejected the ordinance. But supporters have vowed to bring the issue back to the council.

Michigan Messenger’s David Alire Garcia contributed to this post.

Media were barred from attending the meeting to discuss new transparency policies for the city of Lansing held in the City Attorney's office Friday.

“We’ve decided moving forward that anyone who wants to come, can,” said Lansing Police Chief Mark Alley, a member of Smith’s working group.

Others at the meeting included Penny Gardner, president of the Lansing Association for Human Rights; Lansing City Clerk Chris Swope, Bernadette Brown, policy director at the Triangle Foundation; Dennis Hall, a past president of LAHR.

To show the group’s openness, the members announced the group’s next meeting, Dec. 10 at 11 a.m., would be open to the public.

Facing criticism for keeping the public out of the process to rework the city’s transparency guidelines, the city attorney justified his decision.

“I didn’t feel comfortable making a unilateral decision to invite cameras in,” Smith said.

The working group discussed opening the meeting and two members, Swope and Alley, said they strongly supported keeping the meeting closed; one member, Gardner, said she strongly supported opening the meeting to the public; and one member, Brown, said she supported which ever process the group chose so long as the final product was presented to the public for input before being finalized. Hall said he saw merits for keeping the meeting closed and opening it up to public scrutiny.

Swope said he did not think the group constituted a public body as defined by the state’s Open Meetings Act.

“It did not need to be open,” Swope said. “There’s no legal requirement.”

Attorney Robin Herman, from Butzel Long law firm, which is contracted by the Michigan Press Association to provide legal services for media outlets, said the working group was likely not a “legal” violation.

“It’s absolutely a violation of the spirit of this law,” she said, however. “They are making policy about sunshine laws behind closed doors.”

Swope disagreed with Herman’s assessment, saying that if the working group were a public body, then that would mean his staff meetings for the clerk’s office would also be required to be open to the public. Alley echoed that concern.

While the media was barred from Friday’s initial meeting in the city’s law library, at-large Lansing City Council member Carol Wood did stop in and was allowed into the meeting. She declined to stay in the meeting because “it wasn’t an open process, it was a closed meeting.”

Following the meeting, Wood praised the group for opening the next meeting to the public.

“I’m pleased that everyone feels that way, that it needs to be open. But again, why didn’t it start out that way? This is government,” Wood said.

Wood, as well as council members Sandy Allen and Eric Hewitt, who all serve on the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, has been pushing for the policy.

The working group was formed to develop new policy following two incidents from earlier this year where private information was released in police reports through the Freedom of Information Act. The law allows the public to review or receive copies of documents created by the body. Such documents include e-mails, memos, reports and voice mails.

After a controversial undercover sex sting in Lansing’s Fenner Nature Center in May, Smith’s office released police reports where a man’s HIV-positive status was left unredacted. Advocates said the release violated a stringent, but untested public health code law, which makes it a misdemeanor to release a person’s HIV-status. That lead to Lansing Mayor Virgil Bernero asking Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox to review the incident and determine if any laws were broken. In August, Cox’s office ruled that no laws had been broken.

A second incident occurred shortly after the Cox ruling. City officials released private medical information as well as identified people falsely accused of a crime. All that information was improperly redacted from a police report about a fake gay-bashing.

Lansing City Hall

“I actually think it’s better if we don’t [open the meetings] for the reason we can probably be more candid that way,” Smith said late last week when asked if the meetings would be open to the public.

Omar Chaudhary, a lawyer from Butzel Long, which runs a legal hotline in conjunction with the Michigan Press Association, said Smith can argue the group is creating a legal opinion, which would be protected by attorney-client privilege. That, he said, means the group can meet in closed session and with no public input.

“They’re trying to be very clever with the law,” Chaudary said.

Carol Wood, an at-large Lansing City Council member, said the proposed closed meetings trouble her.

“This is government, shouldn’t we have an open-door policy with this?” Wood asked.

Penny Gardner, the president of the Lansing Association for Human Rights who has been named a member of the working group, said the closed-door meeting is “another roadblock to transparency.”

Lansing City Clerk Chris Swope, also a working group member, said he doesn’t have a problem with the group meeting behind closed doors. “I think it’s not a body covered by the Open Meetings Act,” Swope said. “I think it’s appropriate to have some discussions as the perceived problems as a working group.”

Other working groups members identified by Smith include Bernadette Brown, policy director for the Detroit-based gay rights group Triangle Foundation; Nancy English, from LAHR; Dennis Hall, the former LAHR president; and Lansing Police Chief Mark Alley.

The working group is being formed, Smith said, to advise him in the development of new policies for the city in responding to FOIA requests. FOIA is a broad state law which gives citizens and the media access to public documents. Lansing is reviewing and developing new policies in response to a controversy from this past summer over the release of the HIV-positive status of a man arrested in a controversial undercover sex sting.

Leaders in the gay community have said the release violated a strict, yet untested, state law which prohibits the release of a person’s HIV status except under specific circumstances. The man was charged with one count of indecent exposure, and pleaded guilty in Ingham County Circuit Court.

The controversy over the release of the man’s HIV status resulted in Mayor Virgil Bernero asking Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox to review the matter. In late August, the attorney general ruled that Smith had not violated any laws in releasing the HIV-positive status of the man arrested.

As a result, Smith said he directed staff in his office to redact medical information in FOIA requests, but shortly after that order went out, lawyers from the city attorney’s office released a police report in the case of a false accusation of an antigay hate crime in Lansing where private medical information, names and addresses of minors and the names and addresses of people falsely accused of a crime were improperly redacted.

Smith and the city council have been at odds over the policy since July, when the Public Safety Committee ordered Smith to provide a new policy in a month. No policy was presented. That drove Wood to declare in September she was giving Smith two weeks to develop and release a new policy or she would introduce an ordinance.

Draft ordinance language was released to Public Safety members on Nov. 9, and Smith quickly released a draft document which he said the working group would review and revise. Wood asked Smith to consider the draft ordinance language and explain if it could be implemented in a new policy.

During last week special Public Safety meeting on Friday, Smith released a memo to the committee explaining that the ordinance language could not be included in the policy, because state law prohibited the city from creating an ordinance about FOIA.

Smith and council members have said they will have a new policy in place by the end of the city council legislative session in December.

Pam Byrnes

Byrnes told Michigan Messenger in June, that she thought the time was right for the legislative move.

The time has come. … I think attitudes are changing. We are seeing other states flip on this issue especially when you get the former Vice President Dick Cheney acknowledging same-sex marriages then I think we definitely see a change in attitude and it’s time to revisit this.

Byrnes’ proposal would require a two-thirds vote of approval from both the House and the Senate in order to revise the state constitution by putting a question on the ballot.

And electoral success in Michigan Tuesday might just support Byrnes’ June optimism.

Byrnes announcement on Wednesday came less than 24 hours after Kalamazoo voters overwhelmingly approved an ordinance to prohibiting discrimination on the basis of, among other things, sexual orientation and gender identity. Those same voters in Kalamazoo voted openly gay resident Terry Kuseke to the city commission.

Voters in Detroit also sent openly gay former news man Charles Pugh to the president’s seat on the Detroit City Council — making him the first openly gay council member in the city’s history. Meanwhile, voters in Ferndale return Michigan’s first openly gay mayor, Craig Covey, to the mayor’s seat there.

The issue of same-sex marriage itself had a mixed result nationally. Maine voters rejected a law which would allow same-sex couples to marry, while Washington state voters approved a ballot measure dubbed “everything but marriage.” A year ago, as the nation celebrated the election of then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama to the White House, LGBT Americans were outraged to lose the right to marry in California because an initiative there, called Proposal 8, passed.

Byrnes was flanked by representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan; Triangle Foundation, a Detroit-based LGBT rights group; Michigan Equality, a Lansing-based LGBT rights group; and from both organized labor and clergy.