Model law

A few years ago a friend (not the debate partner) moved into Detroit and the North Rosedale Park neighborhood. He and his partner were able to get a big grand house built in the 1920s for about a third of the value of my small house in the 'burbs. He, of course, had to put a lot of money into restoration. One advantage of this neighborhood is it has its own community center, not owned by the city. For 50 years that center has hosted the Park Players, a community theater group. My friend has become an actor in the troupe and his partner has joined the costume crew. This afternoon I saw their production of The Addams Family Musical, in which daughter Wednesday falls in love with a boy from (gasp) Ohio. The acting and singing was at least as good (and many cases better) than my college students did in their own musical a month ago.

After the show I drove around the neighborhood a bit to admire the fine homes. I was reminded of one of the contrasts in Detroit. Going to and from North Rosedale Park I drove through Brightmoor, one of the poorest neighborhoods and one of the hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. These two neighborhoods are only a couple miles apart.



I've written several times about Gary Glenn, the nasty homophobe who authored Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage and is a new representative from Midland in the state House. Glenn is freaking out, this time because Tony Lascari, the new guy appointed as the news editor of the Midland Daily News, is gay.



Because of Glenn and people like him Michigan doesn't include sexual minorities in the state-wide civil rights law. Such an addition doesn't look like it will be approved soon. Because of that the Michigan Civil Rights Commission approved a model non-discrimination ordinance that local jurisdictions can use to offer protections to sexual minorities. There are at least 30 (I think the count is 38) towns and cities across the state that have adopted such ordinances, though they vary widely in structure and scope. The model will serve as a guide to cities who wish to add protections for us.

Here's why the state law won't be updated soon. Kevin Cotter is the new House Speaker. He is also from Midland and is also a leader in Glenn's American Family Association. Yeesh. Yes, a bigot has the top job in the Michigan House. Cotter said laws to protect us are a "solution in search of a problem" and that they "have a history of themselves being discriminatory."