Civil rights, religious freedom — and Jase Bolger
By Nancy Kaffer, Detroit Free Press Columnist 10:42 a.m. EST November 24, 2014
Jase Bolger can't win.
On the one hand, the Republican state House speaker is busy supporting a watered-down version of a long-sought expansion of the state's civil rights act (a GOP-approved form of the bill that would add protections for gay, lesbian and bisexual, but not transgender, Michiganders). At the same time, he's working diligently to enact a state version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a federal law intended to protect practitioners of minority religions, but lately used as grounds to deny contraceptive coverage to employees of closely held companies.
A Michigan RFRA would allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT people in some situations, regardless of whom our civil rights laws protect. Bolger claims his intent is to protect the freedom of businesses whose owners have specific, provable religious objections to gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people. That's a highly suspect argument.
So now there are two balls in the air: whether the expansion of the state's civil rights act will move forward, and whether the state RFRA will pass, regardless.
http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2014/11/24/lgbt-civil-rights-gay-michigan-elliott-larsen/19480847/