Several days ago, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to pursue a definitive decision on marriage equality across the land. Finally this, after 36 of 50 states have already passed marriage equality into law. It’s a move that would be inarguably wonderful: We take a giant step away from hate and, in the process, create a brand new way to make money to pay for basic services.

Same-sex marriage is not the last domino we need to topple in the fight for LGBTQ equality and protections in the U.S.—but it is one of the big ones. Tip this domino over and the others will fall a lot easier.

In the past, “LGBTQ equality” has never been synonymous with “Michigan”—and I’m not sure why, because it’s easy money for a state that is expected to come up $289M short of its revenue projections.

No Innovation without Progress

Open up a copy of the Detroit Free Press, listen to people talking at a local deli, or attend panels held by an area chamber of commerce, and the rhetoric is familiar, yet hollow: Michigan lawmakers want to make the Great Lakes State more seductive to job-seekers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and multinational companies shopping for a new place to call home. They’ve been wanting this for like, five years.

Michigan is supposed to be the great hope of the 21st century, a place for millennials to shuck their self-centeredness and become productive drivers of the Motor City economy; it’s supposed to be the great new destination for tourists (have you seen the beaches on the west side of the state? They’re magnificent!) and creatives who’ve been priced out of New York, San Francisco, Austin, Portland, and so on.

Yet, not so much.

Hollow, because the rhetoric is present, but the actions seem counterintuitive to the implied goal.

In 2014, the Supreme Court struck down the state’s small-minded same-sex marriage ban from a decade earlier—and Attorney General Bill Schuette bent over backwards to make sure that same-sex couples still remained unable to get legally wed in this state. Working this hard to prevent people from spending obscene amounts of money to get married, make homes, and raise families in Michigan, is the quintessence of anti-recovery.

It is a desperate gesture that appeases only a segment of baby boomers—those who cling to medieval principles (anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-everything, it seems) that will prevent more money from flowing into the state.

I mean at the end of the day, that’s what it’s about: monetizing a large group of individuals who have only known marginalization. Michigan’s next course of action should probably be finding a way to transform the majority of the state into a safe space for LGBTQ individuals. We only feel safe in gay bars, community centers, or our friends’ houses—there’s always the specter of minding your public displays of affection when you’re out at the movies or a restaurant.

The rigors of such self-censorship also means we’re probably not out there spending our money at certain businesses, in certain neighborhoods, in particular parts of the state, because we are scared for our very lives.

I refuse to be scared anymore and to let that fear dictate how and where I spend my money. Having spent my formative years in New York City, I’ve learned that it’s very possible to be a successful, proud queer individual without having to hide who you are.

It is the same reality that I want for LGBTQ folks here as well.

A friend was telling me about how he and his boyfriend were walking through the Corktown section of Detroit, which is arguably one of the more progressive slices of the state (Gawker recently equated it to Brooklyn’s Williamsburg—a stretch, but you get the idea.) He was holding his boyfriend’s hand as they walked past an apartment complex when they felt some kind of metal object miss them by inches. Someone from above decided to throw it out of their window.

It is hard not to feel targeted in this state where our lawmakers have told us:

You can get fired for being gay.

You cannot get married.

You cannot adopt one another’s kids.

You cannot kiss, hold hands, or hug in public.

You cannot visit your loved one if they are in critical condition in a hospital.

And as of last month, this is what’s at stake: You may not necessarily have the right to be treated by an EMT if your life is in grave danger and the EMT feels it is against his or her moral principles to assist you; you may not necessarily have the right to get served in a restaurant; you may not necessarily have the right to have a cashier accept your money at a pharmacy.

You may not. Moral principles.

These attitudes not only keep away talented queer men and women, they keep away most people who want the pride of living in a progressive part of the world, too. To tell men and women that their friends are not entitled to basic services and rights on account of their biology is the kind of thinking that’ll have them seek opportunities elsewhere.

Homes for All Families

It is easy, with the unrest around the country and the rest of the world, not to notice the Mississippization of Michigan choking the state’s potential.

It is a troubling branding crisis when the Big Three automakers have pro-LGBTQ policies and the state that mints its reputation on them do not. There is a dire disconnect. Maybe it’s the kind of decision that inspired GM to spinoff Cadillac and move it from Detroit to New York City.

This is the kind of branding crisis that makes many job-seekers and innovators and people with money take a drive down I-94 to Chicago and find a friendlier neighbor, one that says, “Be whoever you want, as long as you’re willing to pull your weight,” or even several hundred miles east to New York, to feel more “relevant.”