LGBT SHOWDOWN? Bay County May be Focus of Tea Party at Tuesday Meeting
Comments Sought on Civil Rights Ordinance Could Spark Lively Discussion
February 8, 2014
By: Dave Rogers
Commission will consider an ordinance banning workplace discrimination.
Tea vs. LGBT.
That toxic combination may boil over at a meeting of the Bay County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday that will consider an ordinance banning workplace discrimination.
Equality Michigan states: "While the Governor included numerous economic items on his agenda, he failed to mention the need to address workplace discrimination in Michigan. It remains legal to fire a worker simply for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or straight in Michigan.
"The Michigan Department of Civil Rights released a report in January 2013 outlining the negative economic impact of allowing discrimination against LGBT workers to continue. - See more at: http://www.equalitymi.org/media-center/media-releases/equality-michigan-responds-governor-snyders-state-state#sthash.zjRWH9Je.dpuf
Comments are being sought at Tuesday's meeting but the full board won't vote on the proposed Bay County Civil Rights Ordinance until March 11, according to County Executive Thomas L. Hickner and ordinance proposer Commissioner Donald Tilley.
The meeting may draw LGBT activists as well as Tea Party supporters of Gary Glenn, Republican candidate in the Midland-Bay 98th House District to replace term-limited Jim Stamas.
Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan since 1999 and one of two co-authors of the Marriage Protection Amendment approved by Michigan voters in 2004, including by 61 percent of the vote in the 98th House District.
Another Republican candidate in the 98th District is Saginaw Valley State University administrator Mark Potts, who announced last June he would seek the GOP nomination.
Joan Brausch, Midland, retired church employee and an unsuccessful candidate against Stamas in 2012, has announced that she will seek the Democratic nomination for the seat.
The 98th House District includes the city of Midland and Larkin, Lincoln, Homer, Midland, Lee and Jerome townships in Midland County and the cities of Pinconning and Auburn and Gibson, Mount Forest, Pinconning, Garfield, Fraser, Beaver and Williams townships in Bay County.