LANSING – What seemed the straightforward signing Wednesday by Governor Rick Snyder of legislation to provide emergency dredging aid found itself caught up in the debate about whether the state should provide the same legal protections to the LBGT community as it does for people based on their race, religion and other factors.

The state will spend $21 million to dredge 58 publicly owned harbors and establish a loan program to help owners of private marinas pay for dredging under the legislation.

Democrats and liberal organizations seized on language included in SB 252 (PA 10, immediate effect) that sets up the loan program for private marinas that states a marina is eligible for a loan as long as it “provides docking, mooring, or launching services for recreational boating and does not limit its services based on religion, race, color, creed, national origin, sex, marital status, disability, age, sexual orientation, or family status.”

The inclusion of sexual orientation as one of the categories prompted Shelli Weisberg of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan to thank Snyder and the Republican-led Legislature for offering protections to the LBGT community. Democrats and liberal organizations have urged protections for lesbians, bisexuals, gays and transgendered persons in the state’s civil rights act to include them among other categories, like race, who cannot be fired or denied housing.

Republicans in control of the Legislature have refused to take up that legislation the past two years. In 2009, a bill was introduced in the then-Democratic-led House and made it out of committee to the House floor, but died there.

There are only two other mentions in state law containing the words “sexual orientation.” One requires local police agencies to report crimes based on sexual orientation to the state, as well as other crimes considered hate crimes. The other prohibits discrimination against employees or contractors based sexual orientation or other innate factors at Cobo Center as part of the law that put a regional authority in charge of the facility.

Snyder, at a signing ceremony, was asked about the U.S. Supreme Court considering this week cases that could lead to the striking down of Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage. Snyder said the issue is of little import to him because Michigan’s voters decided the issue in 2004. His office said late Wednesday night it could not yet comment on inclusion of protection for those based on sexual orientation in the legislation.

On the primary purpose of the legislation, Snyder said he hoped the state could win de facto reimbursement from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which usually pays for dredging work, but has scaled back its efforts.

“I think this is a case where we’re going to go faster than what they would normally do, so we hope to get potentially reimbursed in some capacity, theoretically for some of the places that the army corps might do,” he said. “But we’re not going to wait. We’re going to move forward and then we’ll hopefully have a good and positive dialogue with the corps of engineers about what they traditionally might have been part of.”

SB 233 (PA 9, immediate effect) contains supplemental funding for the dredging projects, as well as other Natural Resources Trust Fund projects and money to get the new veterans services agency up and running.

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