Michigan House passes amendment protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination

The Michigan House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill giving civil rights protections to LGBTQ people, a move celebrated by rights advocates as a “monumental piece of pro-equality legislation.”

Senate Bill 4, which received bipartisan support, amended the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to explicitly include discrimination protections for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.

The bill passed the state Senate last week and it now heads to the desk of the state’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who’s expected to sign it into law.

“What a moment,” Sen. Jeremy Moss, the Democrat who introduced the bill, wrote on Twitter Wednesday afternoon.

Moss, the state’s first openly gay senator, also shared a short video of lawmakers on the House floor, some waving LGBTQ Pride flags, bursting into applause after the passing of the bill — a moment celebrated by the executive director of Equality Michigan, Erin Knott, as a “big step for equality.”

Before Wednesday, Michigan was one of 29 states with laws that don’t explicitly protect LGBTQ people from discrimination. Even though the state’s high court ruled last year that its discrimination law also includes sexual orientation, that decision could later be reversed if the protections weren’t codified into law.

“By codifying non-discrimination protections into state law, Michigan brings us one step closer to creating a society where LGBTQ young people never have to fear being turned away from a business or told they cannot participate in an activity or enter a public space just because of who they are or who they love,” Gwen Stembridge, advocacy campaign manager for The Trevor Project, told the Daily News in a statement.

The organization, the world’s largest advocacy group focusing on suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth, found that 74% of LGBTQ youth in Michigan reported experiencing discrimination in 2022.

Kelley Robinson, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, said that the passage of the bill would not only protect LGBTQ Michiganders but also “send a message across our nation that when we organize — when we come together as a community — we will and do achieve progress.”

“We’re seeing history in the making here in Michigan,” Robinson said.

According to the HRC, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, more than 400 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in statehouses across the country this year alone.