Schuette's Cowardly Plea To Discriminate

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's op-ed in Sunday's Detroit Free Press attempted to defend his decision to continue fighting marriage equality all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He argued it is his duty, and that he has no choice but to uphold the law and follow directives of federal judges. He cited his allegiance to the recent decision by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman's decision of last March that declared Michigan's marriage ban unconstitutional.
Schuette's argument reeks of moral cowardice. "I was just following orders" is an argument used by some of the most dastardly villains in human history — Nazi soldiers, genocidal rampagers in Laos and figures in Rwanda and Serbia to name just a few in recent memory. Schuette's attempt to put on a cloak of legal justification is just a sham to hide behind his deeply felt animus towards the state's LGBT community.
Are Nazis and genocide extreme examples? Perhaps — but we chose them specifically because, in his op-ed, Schuette equated his "duty" to uphold the marriage ban to his legal duty to uphold Michigan's constitutional ban against the death penalty. We are disgusted that he would try to equate the risk involved in two people seeking to marry and build a life and family together with the risk of killing someone. In fact, we are insulted that Schuette would even suggest it, directly or subliminally.
And by the way — if Schuette is so committed to following the rule of law and the decisions of our highest courts, why did he not follow Judge Friedman's decision? At the time, that was the law of the land. Instead, Schuette chose to challenge that decision by appealing to the 6th Circuit. He did not have to. Attorneys General in other states including Wyoming, North Carolina, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina, New Mexico and Illinois opted to follow the courts' rulings and not challenge their decision to strike down their state's marriage bans. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder issued an order that state's attorneys general do not have to uphold discriminatory constitutional amendments. It was solely Schuette's decision to fight to preserve discrimination in Michigan.
Last November, this paper strongly supported Mark Totten to replace Schuette as Michigan's Attorney General. We analyzed Schuette's record and found him to be ideologically committed to driving LGBT people out of Michigan's economy and social fabric and out of the state entirely. We strongly felt this was not only devastating for the LGBT community but also for the state as a whole. The new 21st century economic engines are fueled by diversity and inclusion of the finest minds with unique perspectives and ideas. Michigan will fall behind if differences continue to be perceived as risks and not assets.
We continue to wish that Bill Schuette was not our Attorney General. We can only hope that the general populace of Michigan will read his op-ed argument for what it is: a weak plea for permission to openly discriminate.
BTL is co-producing the LGBTQ&A Career Fair March 5 at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. There will be up to 40 of Michigan's largest employers actively recruiting hundreds of LGBT people, many of them young people just graduating from colleges and universities. We invite Attorney General Bill Schuette to come see and meet exactly the extraordinary people he is trying so hard to drive away from Michigan's work force.