Ending same-sex benefits isn’t a good Christmas present for public employees

On Dec. 22, Governor Snyder signed House bills 4770 and 4771, which prohibit public employers from including same-sex partner benefits in employee compensation packages and prohibit discussion of those from collective bargaining. Dave Agema of Grandville was the primary sponsor of both.

According to the National Conference of State Legislators via A2Politico.com, this measure would save $1,314.28 for each of Michigan’s 138 public employees who took advantage of the benefits. According to my calculator and basic mathematical skills, that’s a total of $181,370.64 the state will be saving.

While it’s wonderful that a bit more money will be going back to the state, this really isn’t the place to be cutting. If the state really wanted to save money, they could cut all benefits from compensation packages for public employees. That would save many times more than what these two bills supply, yet these cuts are focused on one single group of employees.

These two bills attacked a single group of public employees. That’s called discrimination. I realize there’s no point in arguing the morality of homosexuality since a person’s viewpoint on it is determined almost wholly by their religious beliefs and convictions, but had this legislation been aimed at any other group of employees – for instance, if it had cut benefits for heterosexual partners of public employees – there would have been a lot more outcry.

The oddest thing is that I didn’t expect Snyder to ratify this. Sure, it’s silly to be surprised by a Republican governor supporting Republican legislation, but I had a hard time seeing the Governor supporting this.

What surprises me the most is that Snyder marketed himself during the campaign as a businessman, not a politician. He campaigned and won as a Republican, but his public appearances, commercials and all the media related to him focused heavily on fiscal conservatism and better business practices, not social conservatism.

When I covered his appearance at Western Michigan University during his campaign, I saw a man ready to engage the audience in questions of business practices and money-saving solutions for the state, but also politely avoided questions from the audience aimed at judging his views on social issues.

Looks like we found out where the Governor stands.

This decision will be a turn-off to a small group of employees and an equally small group of potential public employees, it’s a bigger turnoff to some people who liked Governor Snyder and it’s a bigger turnoff to certain people looking to locate to Michigan. Discrimination, via any creed or status, isn’t right, and this is the last thing Michigan needs added to its image.