Long Time Coming
The vote by the Michigan State Senate to extend civil rights protections to people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and queer is a cause for celebration.
This decision comes amidst a growing national trend to assault and demonize the LGBTQ+ community. Tied to the attacks on Critical Race Theory, attacks on “queer theory” are integral to efforts to distort and destroy fact based, critical analysis of our country. Fifteen states have laws prohibiting certain words and concepts from being uttered, including mentioning racism as “systemic, “and outlawing the words gay and queer. State legislators are targeting trans parents and students, in some cases making it illegal to offer care and support to them.
From July 2021 to June of 2022 PEN’s index of book banning listed 2,532 instances of individual books being banned, affecting 1,648 titles. The content of most of the books involved characters of color, LGBTQ+ individuals or issues of race. Fully, 35% of US school children are affected by these decisions.
Janai Nelson, president of the Legal Defense Fund, emphasized that the attacks on critical race theory and queer identities are linked:
It’s no coincidence that these attacks are targeting not just historically marginalized people but also our very experiences of intersectionality. Mr. DeSantis recently rubbished the inclusion of “queer theory” in the A.P. African American studies course that was rejected, seeming to deny the need for future generations to learn about the contributions of queer Black American icons like Pauli Murray, Bayard Rustin, Audre Lorde, and James Baldwin.
This assault on ideas and identities is more than rhetoric. It contributes to physical, political, and psychological violence against people. According to the ACLED database:
Members of the LGBT+ community face higher risks of interpersonal violence and violent crime relative to the non-LGBT+ population, and ACLED data indicate that the LGBT+ community is also at heightened risk of political violence, defined as serious physical manifestations of violence that are reported to be politically rather than interpersonally motivated.
In the lead-up to the midterm elections, anti-LGBT+ activity surged around the United States, including demonstrations, acts of political violence, and the distribution of hate-filled propaganda. This political violence more than tripled from 64 events in 2021 to 193 events in 2022 as of mid-November.
At the same time, progressive democrats campaigned and won in Michigan with the open, active support of the queer community and our allies. Many ran on platforms that included their pledge to amend the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA) to finally extend protections from discrimination to LGBTQ+ people in our state.
This victory was 50 years in the making. In 1973, when a state civil rights law had its first hearing, Michigan republicans, led by then State Representative John Engler, put in place a politics of hate and division. They intentionally excluded LGBTQ+ people from the language of the law and insisted it was designed to protect African Americans.
This was the beginning of the GOP wedge politics, implying that queer identities and race were somehow conflicting categories. It took another decade before anyone in the state legislature had the courage to propose extending ELCRA. State Rep. Jim Dressel made the effort, but could not get the amendment out of committee, and he lost the next election. For the next two decades, queer advocates could not find anyone willing to initiate extending the legislation.
Instead, we endured attacks on basic rights, especially the right to marry. It was not until 2003 with the election of Jennifer Granholm as Governor and her executive order to extend anti-discrimination protections based on gender identity to public employees that we saw any movement. Battles in schools, workplaces, courts, universities, churches, and families continued decade after decade.
This week Michigan legislators made a courageous decision. They rejected the hate filled politics that shape and seer so many in our land. It was a long time coming, but a sweet victory, reminding us that we can act to secure love and compassion for one another.
