On Thursday, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the Michigan constitution’s ban on gay marriage, passed in 2004, prohibits government agencies and public schools from providing healthcare and other benefits to the same-sex partners of their employees. The decision reverses a 2005 decision by an Ingham County Circuit Court, with the Court declaring that benefit plans provided to LGBT employees of the City of Kalamazoo, the University of Michigan, and Michigan State University violated the amendment. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has announced that it plans to appeal the ruling, arguing that “providing health insurance to same sex domestic partners is vastly different from recognition of a marriage and the over one thousand benefits and rights that marriage confers.” Moreover, the ACLU has argued that many voters voting to pass the gay marriage ban in November of 2004 understood that it was only to impact marriage and did not ban same-sex benefits. In a press release, the ACLU cited statements from the two major organizations supporting the amendment in 2004, Citizens for the Protection of Marriage and the American Family Association of Michigan, in which they stated that the amendment was to impact “marriage only.” Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican, praised the court’s decision and stated that it upheld the “will of the people.”
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