On second thought... just kidding about that statement a couple months ago.
Two months ago, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announced that he wouldn't sign a "religious freedom" bill. Today,
he did just that. Snyder signed three bills into law that will allow publicly-funded adoption agencies to decline services to same-sex couples based on religious grounds.
It's a far cry from this statement, which Snyder made in April:
"Given all the events that are happening in Indiana, I thought it would be good to clarify my position," he said. "I would veto RFRA legislation in Michigan if it is a standalone piece of legislation."
Maybe he didn't consider them "standalone," since these three antigay bills were bundled together.
Snyder, who prides himself on being a business focused pro-jobs governor (his twitter account is "@onetoughnerd") has now proven himself to be a guy who simply bends to the political winds. A couple months ago, the RFRA didn't look so good based on Indiana's blowback. But this month, meh, why not?
If Snyder thinks this will attract jobs to Michigan, he is dead wrong. If he has any future political aspirations, this broken promise will hound him. And if he ever had a conscience, he seems to have lost it. After all, he's not Gov. Mike Pence—who's an actual true believer. Instead, Snyder's simply a sell out to political expediency now. Hard to know which is worse.
An estimated 3,000 kids in Michigan right now await placement in a home. Another 3,460 kids are currently being raised by lesbian, gay and bisexual parents in the Great Lakes State. But that doesn't matter to places like Catholic Charities of Shiawassee & Genesee Counties and it clearly doesn't matter to Snyder.
Though Snyder's statement said he was focused on "ensuring that as many children are adopted to as many loving families as possible," the Williams Institute found the three bills would instead ensure that some of those 3,460 adopted kids "would have remained in foster care for a longer period of time."
If Snyder is looking for people who have shown true moral fiber in trying to help kids who don't have a home, he need look no further than Michigan's own April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, a lesbian couple who adopted four special needs kids between them (two each). The couple wound up at the Supreme Court in April in an effort to win marriage equality so they could be jointly recognized as parents to their kids.
"I don't think Jayne and I would be here if it weren't for the children," said DeBoer, who met Rowse through a mutual friend 15 years ago. "The (legal) fight came because our children were being discriminated against."
Gov. Rick Snyder has now cleared the way for discrimination against people like DeBoer and Rowse—two nurses who stepped up to provide a home and a family to four kids who were very much in need.
Nothing seems more wrong than that.
