Posted on 06/09/2005 5:55:32 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Lawsuit asks federal court to strike down Michigan's gay-marriage ban
6/9/2005, 8:26 p.m. ET
By JAMES PRICHARD
The Associated Press
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A new federal lawsuit seeks to strike down Michigan's constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, saying it violates the U.S. Constitution.
Bangor attorney Jessie Olson is named as a co-plaintiff with her lesbian partner, Tabitha A. Flatau, in the suit she filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Kalamazoo.
She said the amendment is stripping away job benefits such as health insurance from homosexual and unmarried heterosexual domestic partners, and their children.
Michigan voters approved the amendment, which adds Section 25 to Article 1 of the state's constitution, with November's passage of Proposal 2.
"Section 25 applies at all levels of state, county and municipal government, imposing a special disability on people in same-sex relationships whether they seek protection for their relationships from government employers, administrative agencies, cities, towns or the state Legislature," the lawsuit says.
The amendment violates the equal-protection clause of the Constitution's 14th Amendment, according to the suit.
Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox's office said it hadn't seen Olson's lawsuit Thursday. A telephone message seeking comment was left at the office of the Midland-based American Family Association of Michigan. That group's president, Gary Glenn, was an outspoken supporter of Proposal 2.
Going into the November election, opponents of Proposal 2 said they worried about its possible effect on domestic partner benefits for unmarried couples.
On March 16, Cox said the amendment bars local and state governments, in future labor contracts, from designating gay partners of employees to receive health and retirement benefits also given to spouses. He wrote in an opinion that Kalamazoo's policy of offering benefits to same-sex partners violates the amendment.
Five days later, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan challenged Cox's opinion in a still-pending lawsuit filed in Ingham County Circuit Court. Those bringing that suit include 21 same-sex couples — including Kalamazoo city employees, workers at state universities and employees at various state agencies and departments — and a Washington-based AFL-CIO group, National Pride at Work, that backs gay rights.
I thought we went through the proper channels in getting this passed. Now the courts want to over turn the will of the people. Can't say we didn't know this would be coming.
</sarcasm>
TS
You would think a 60-40 vote by the people would carry some kind of weight wouldn't you?
Did'nt Nebraska have their "state" constitutional admendment over turned by a Federal judge?
Yes.
Its all about money. Always has been.
Once again, the socialist go to court to push their version of the American Goverment on everyone else! They cannot win at the ballot box, and so they get a friendly judge to legislate from the bench!
We voted, and we won prop. 2, but, that won't matter to a socialist federal judge who will instill on all Americans their brand of SOCIALISM.
Any wonder Americans are training, equiping, and preparing for the soon to come civil war?
God Bless the American people, and I pray for their safsty and security. God knows we need it!
Any chance this lawsuit would help Kevin Butler's campaign. He could make the case for aprroving strict constructionist judges to the federal bench.
I have a fear that liberals are trying to provoke another civil war just to get the un in here to settle things, & at the rate that things are going it is going to happen soon! I hate to think such things but can anyone show me where I am wrong in my theory? It does not matter what WE the people say the courts will just tell us serfs what we are going to do & say and that is just that & we'll love it too!
How strange amd predictable that a Freddy judge can find the right of homo-sexuals to marry in the Constitution, but, cannot anywhere in the same Constitution the "right to keep and bear arms . . ."
This kind of socialism is exactly what is destroying the socialist dumyrats. I believe that enough Americans are finally waking up to what is really going on around them, and the socialist in this Country will continue to lose power, and we can get back to the "republic" that our forefathers gave us!
You may be right.
NO WE WILL NOT LOVE IT!
82nd ABN 1/508th
"fury from the sky"
The UN? If the US, UK or Australia isn't in charge of a UN military mission, then that mission is only capable of molesting unarmed refugees. Calling in the UN to the US would make the old Canadian baby seal hunts seem like a fair fight.
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