OutCenter Says Snyder Missed Opportunity

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The OutCenter in Benton Harbor is calling it a missed opportunity for Governor Snyder to meet with the gay rights organization about expanding Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. Executive director Mary Jo Schnell says the law needs to be modified.

“When you talk about not providing equal protections under the law, you are sending the message that we are ‘less than,’ that we are not afforded the same rights and protections,” said Schnell.

The governor was invited to a meeting at the OutCenter yesterday while he was in town for a function with state Representative Al Pscholka.

“We were thinking it would be a fantastic timing for us to reach out to his office and invite him to have a conversation,” said Schnell. Snyder has in the past expressed support to expand Elliott-Larsen, but Schnell says he’s not had the political will to make it happen.

“This has been something that he has, from the get-go, an opportunity to act on, and he hasn’t. This (inaction) hurts the people we serve.”

She says they also wanted to talk about the so-called “bathroom bill” introduced by Senator Tom Casperson. That bill would prevent transgendered students from being able to use bathrooms and locker rooms at school coinciding with the gender with which they identify. A similar bill has become law in North Carolina.