Proposal 1, if adopted by city voters in November, would prohibit the city from enacting any ordinance or policy which makes specific reference to sexual orientation. The cities of Kalamazoo and Huntington Woods are voting on similar measures next month. [...] "If we pass Proposal 1 we will be saying Traverse City no longer welcomes some people," [Paul Heaton, the co-chair of the Traverse City Campaign Against Discrimination] said. "It does send a bad message on what kind of place this is."
Um ... yeah? So? Your point being?
Let's face it, Mr. Heaton: if Proposal 1 passes, it will send a precise and accurate message on the kind of place Traverse City is, now won't it? (Note that I am not saying that having the proposal on the ballot says anything about the town. I'm saying that if Proposal 1 passes, Traverse City's people will have made a plain and unarguable statement about what kind of city it is.)
We can, of course, ignore the fact that Proposal 1 flies directly in the teeth of the Romer v. Evans Supreme Court decision that said that states (or, in this case, state actors), cannot single out groups in this way. After all, Traverse City is ignoring it, now aren't they?
If it passes -- and I expect that it will -- the law resulting from Proposal 1 will almost certainly be challenged in court. Said challenge will be complicated by Michigan's sodomy laws. In other words, technically, what Traverse City is doing is to say that you may not protect people who engage in activities that are against the state's law.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
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12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!