Holland, Michigan: Gays Won’t Have Equal Rights Here

Last year in Holland, Michigan, a pastor suggested that the city council add sexual orientation and gender identification to the non-discrimination policy.

Last week, the City Council shot down the proposal on a 5-4 vote. And now, conservative groups are trying to bring down the candidates who voted to expand the anti-discrimination laws. Not surprisingly they’re all “family” groups, the Christian codeword for “prejudiced jerks”:

… Michigan anti-gay rights crusader Gary Glenn has called the proposal “dangerous.”

Glenn is the President of the American Family Association and The Campaign for Michigan Families. He tells WZZM 13 News that his organization will financially help support candidates who run against any of the three council members who voted yes for the failed proposal and are involved in the city’s upcoming election.

That’s Christian logic for you: Vote out the people who want to make Holland a more inclusive place to live, where everyone is protected under the law… It’s like that one Bible verse in which Jesus kicks the gay people when they’re down and then runs back to his family.

There’s a Facebook group (I’m boycotting Holland (MI) until love is =) calling for a boycott of local businesses unless they openly support the idea of equality — only a couple places are on their list right now.

In the meantime, people can continue to speak up at City Council meetings and even draft a new anti-discrimination proposal, though that’s probably going to encounter the same opposition.

Better idea: Just vote out the bigots on the council.

(Thanks to Zach for the link)

selfification

Sometimes I feel like we should just let them do that. Move parallel motions to kick out the crazies from some cities. Let them go to their own cities and enact their own laws and leave the rest of us alone. They can have creationist medicine, biblical law, biblical physics, biblical engineering etc. Let them set up their own economy. Start a fund to rescue all the sane people from the crazy zone and set up an immigration policy such that the crazies can move to the sane zone after passing a test, passed a probationary period and have been naturalized. I haven’t yet solved the problem of how the geographically separate the two groups – perhaps I should work on inventing a portal gun.
Alex

This makes me sad, I love Michigan, it’s beautiful here but that beauty is being tarnished by ignorant assholes who think just because they are bangin someone of the opposite gender they are better than everyone else. I swear if I hear one more Bible thumper I’m going to thump their skull with it….
Kate

I worked in Holland for a very long time and we have since moved to the markedly more liberal minded (although not *quite there yet) Lansing, MI. In my time in Holland I encountered infinite pamphlets on my vehicle in the parking lot offering salvation, I was given 4 “Get out of Hell free” monopoly-esqe cards by patrons and was on more than one occasion, verbally scolded by customers (Who mind you were IN my workplace ON A Sunday!) about the fact that we were open on Sundays.

Holland is a VERY heavily populated Christian Reform community. With the campus of “Hope” college (CR belief based college) in town it’s very hard to get anything even approaching open-minded accomplished in that town.

Holland will never change but at the core of it, if I go home and hop into bed with someone who isn’t my husband, that’s nobody’s business, man or woman!(I would NEVER esp considering that my husband is the aforementioned “Zach” who submitted this article to Hemant in the first place 😉 ). For them to go out of their way and say “Not only do we reject gays, but we’re making it ok to openly deny you HOUSING because you’re gay, if we feel like it” is just sick.

I realize there are good Christians out there but when people like the Holland City Council and Westboro Baptist Church are out there flying their christ freak flag, it makes it harder and harder for us to remember that they’re not ALL like that
Sarah

“Anti Gay Rights crusader.”

That is some title for these homophobes.
JulietEcho

Yeah, I have a sibling who just graduated from Hope, and when I’ve visited the college it’s always creeped me out how incredibly Christian the environment is, right down to the music people play in the dorms and flyers in the bathroom stalls.

The city is supposedly even more conservative than the college, so there you go.
Tom Bourque

selfification:

If someone with “the faith of a mustard seed” can “move mountains” then they can just move a mountain into the ocean and live on the resulting island. Problem solved.
David

So glad I left West Michigan. The great brain drain has begun and it will continue until they come to their senses…in 100 years or so. Holland and most of West Michigan is a complete waste of effort.
Tromba61

I have been suffering in this fine little town (Holland) for the past few years. Besides the conservative religious bigotry, the local Dutch are also very unfriendly to anyone outside their groups, i.e. family or church. Actually, a Canadian Dutch Reformed friend told me that they are quite unfriendly to him, so it must be an outsider thing. But there must be something inherently intolerant and suspicious in the DNA of these Dutch who moved here a generation or two ago.
Amezor

What a shame to see that a city bearing the name of arguably the most liberal country in the world has such a conservative and intolerant base. Perhaps that is why they left our country.

I hope that things will change in the near future.

Greetings from a native Dutch
Marie Alexander

As an American, I also hope things change. Where I live it isn’t so bad (then again, I’m a high school student and teens tend to not be homophobes) but it’s upsetting when I see things like this. I just wish that there was a way to get these people to understand, but unfortunately that’s very difficult (if not impossible) to do. -_- smh