Michigan Supreme Court: Anti-Bias Law Protects LGBTQ

The Michigan Supreme Court last week said the state’s anti-discrimination law covers sexual orientation, a victory for LGBTQ residents.

The court, in a 5-2 opinion, said the word “sex” in Michigan’s key civil rights law applies to sexual orientation and not just gender.

While the Legislature in 1976 might have intended to help women when it barred discrimination based on sex, “this motivation does not curtail other applications of the plain statutory language,” Judge Elizabeth Clement wrote for the majority.

She noted that the law has been applied in pregnancy discrimination cases, same-sex sexual harassment and disputes over retirement accounts.

The court is “bound by the language that the Legislature has enacted, not what the parties … believe the Legislature should have enacted or what any individual representative believed was enacted,” Clement said.

In 2019, Rouch World, an event center in Sturgis, declined to host a same-sex wedding, saying it conflicted with the owner’s religious beliefs. That same year, a hair-removal business declined to serve a transgender woman.

The Court of Claims said in 2020 that it was bound by a Court of Appeals decision decades earlier that found sexual orientation wasn’t covered by the civil rights law.

Lawyers for Rouch World said it was up to the Legislature, not courts, to expressly state that Michigan law bars discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is gay and had argued the case at the Supreme Court, praised the decision.

“Our residents deserve to live in a state that recognizes the value of diversity and rejects the notion that our own civil rights law could be used as a tool of discrimination,” Nessel said.

Topics Michigan