BTL Editorial

Michigan Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette is lying to the residents of Michigan. His blind pursuit to continue to enshrine discrimination in our state Constitution is not about the will of the voters, the integrity of families in Michigan or any of the other ridiculous arguments his team pushed in federal court. Schuette’s push to continue to spend Michigan taxpayers’ dollars is about one thing: scoring political points with an increasingly out of touch, and ever shrinking right wing base.

If the will and integrity of the vote was truly on his agenda, then we would see Michigan’s medical marijuana law being enforced as written, rather than being chewed into increasingly smaller pieces. Schuette not only opposed the ballot measure that approved this law, he ran the campaign against it in 2008. And he has continued to undermine the law since being elected in 2010.

That law was approved by 63 percent of the voters, four percent more than the marriage initiative.

The rights of the voters didn’t matter when just weeks after voters rejected the Emergency Manager law, 53 percent to 47 percent, the Republican controlled legislature rammed through the exact same law, and Republican Governor Rick Snyder signed the bill into law. Schuette was silent on that voters’ integrity issue. He was silent when the same Republican legislature rammed through a new bill approving a wolf hunt, after opponents collected enough signatures to put the law on the ballot, and effectively stopped the law in its tracks. And he sat silent when the Republican legislature rammed through a “Right to Work” law, inside a locked building which prohibited the public from watching the legislative debate or interacting with their elected officials.

Mr. Schuette’s own actions put his own words to the lie. He can at least be honest as he throws more precious taxpayer dollars at this ridiculous appeal and admit he is pursuing it because it is his own personal faith perspective. The voters tend to actually appreciate honest politicians, even when they disagree with them. But Mr. Schuette would rather lie than defend his own religious values and beliefs, leaving the impression that he is interested in forcing a theocracy based on his narrow definition of religious values on the rest of the state.

So, let us say it again. Bill Schuette, the Attorney General of the State of Michigan, is a liar.

We do note, however, that despite is dishonesty to the voters and taxpayers, Schuette is doing one thing that fits into the silver lining category. Schuette’s ill-advised, costly appeal will send a case, with an outstanding judicial record of a trial, to the U.S. Supreme Court. In his dissent to the majority opinion in U.S. v Windsor, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the majority opinion of the court, “arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition.” Schuette’s appeal will result in the Court being able to take the step it was on the verge of taking in June 2013. It will approve marriage equality as a protection under the equal protection clause – and marriage will be won in all 50 states.