WTF, Michigan?

WTF, Michigan?

What the hell is the matter with the state of Michigan?  When did they become a hot bed for homophobia?

Last weekend, the State House in Michigan passed a broadly-written bill, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which would allow people to refuse service to LGBT if providing such was at odds with their religious beliefs.  This would include medical / healthcare personnel, such as doctors, nurses, EMTs, and pharmacists.  Need HIV meds?  You may be denied.  Bleeding out the side of your neck?  You might have to wait for a healthcare professional who doesn’t care about your sexual orientation.

The bill still has to be passed by the state senate.  Should it leap that hurdle, hopefully the governor has enough sense to veto the damn thing, just as Arizona’s Jan Brewer did to a similar bill last year. 

Jase Bolger, Michigan’s current Speaker of the House, managed to fast track the measure, which passed 59-50, right along party lines.  “I support individual liberty and I support religious freedom,” Bolger said. “I have been horrified as some have claimed that a person’s faith should only be practiced while hiding in their home or in their church.”

Ummm… what?  Separation of church and state?  How about freedom from religious persecution?

But wait… the logic in this state only gets more convoluted. 

At the same time they were legislating discrimination, the house in Michigan was also busy working on passing a law that would protect the civil rights of the LGBT community. Whiplash logic, to be sure, but that bill got stalled after the testimony of Pastor Stacy Swimp, who testified:

“No one from the LGBT community has ever had fire hoses turned on them by the police department, they have never had to drink out of an LGBT water fountain.  There is no record of LGBT — homosexuals, lesbians—being forced to sit at the back of the bus in an LGBT section.”

Huh? 

So, let’s put aside the fact that they bothered to hear testimony from a man whom many civil rights groups have identified as a hatemonger, but what the man had to say flies in the face of reality.  No, the LGBT community hasn’t experienced exactly the same discrimination as African Americans in this country, Pastor Swimp, but we have been beaten, intimidated, denied employment, denied housing, and killed because of our sexual orientation. 

Oh, and we put up with bullshit from the likes of you!

I have a solution to this state's many problems, including the recent bankruptcy of Detroit.

Madonna needs to come to the rescue.

She could buy Detroit.  She’d be able to buy it for pennies on the dollar and then become their very own ‘Evita’.

Detroit could be transformed into a new gay mecca.  I mean, if Madonna appeared on a balcony each morning to sing, I would actually consider moving there.

But until then?

WTF, Michigan?