HOLLAND (WHTC-AM/FM) — After promoting their campaigns to seniors living at Freedom Village, Holland Mayor Nancy DeBoer, who is running for re-election, and at-large city council candidate Vicki-Lyn Holmes found themselves immersed in a controversy.
DeBoer said everything “was blown out of proportion.”
A double-sided flyer made for the event got passed along, landing in The Holland Sentinel newsroom, where three journalists worked on a story about it. Their sources dubbed the flyer’s claims as “completely untrue and illogical.”
Asked how her flyer came to misrepresent civil rights laws, she said, attorneys have different opinions on that law.
DeBoer said the flyer referenced a 2011 housing policy — voted down by Holland City Council in 2011. She said the city has a policy that includes LGBTQ protection. But the proposed ordinance in 2011 included employment protection, and city officials were advised that they could not set employment law. She said the city adheres to Michigan’s Elliott-Larson Act — which does not include protection for people in the LGBTQIA community.
In essence, the flyer suggests that it’s difficult to identify people who are lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, queer, intersex or asexual (LGBTQIA); that LGBTQIA people are part of a “future protected class,” and that civil lawsuits could result that would have unintended consequences.
Holland attorney Ken Puzycki told WHTC people in the LGBTQIA community who sue for discrimination must prove “that it’s more likely than not that something happened.”
Puzycki said the U.S. Constitution sets a bare-minimum standard that states and municipalities can expand upon, such as extending equal rights’ protection. He said because it’s not always clear what a person’s gender identity is, because there’s not an objective standard.
In essence, the flyer suggests that.
“Gender fluidity, being what it is, is like chasing a ghost,” Puzycki said, so proving discrimination is complicated. “It’s much-easier to imagine that in a race-discrimination situation.”
Still, he said, someone who sues for discrimination would have to show the court a “preponderence of evidence” proving that their actual or perceived gender identity led to discrimination. The burden of proof of discimation is on the person filing the lawsuit, not on the person being sued, he said, though the person being sued does need to respond to the lawsuit.
Holland Township James Larkin, a former member of Holland’s Human Relations Commission — and a now-former City of Holland resident — expressed dismay, but no surprise, over the flyer’s text. He said it was all wrong.
“They state in there that they want Holland to be a free and welcoming community,” he said. “But you can’t really be a free and welcoming community, when you exclude part of that community from the protections that everyone else enjoys.”
That kind of exclusion hurts, he said, and it’s a pain affecting not just people who are excluded — but everyone who cares about those people.
Krista Anderson, mother of a transgender son and a psychologist working as a facilitator for Gender SAFE, a support system for members of the transgender community, said she’s hearing sadness, anger and hurt from transgender people, their family and friends.
“They talk about ‘Oh, the color of your skin is defintely something you can see and we don’t discriminate against that,’” she said. “But we are OK to discrimiate with someone because of who they are, or because of who they love.”
Anderson said The Sentinel story offered some hope, because it showed the flyer’s faulty information, — information she called “heartbreaking” because it shows that transgender people can be fired based on their orientation. The U.S. Supreme Court is this week hearing an employment discrimation case from Michigan. She said many are already fearful of being singled out.
She said the suicide rate for transgender people is “astronomical,” especially for those who do not have supportive family and friends. Besides the mental health issues caused by rejection and discrimination, she said, transgender people are at “significant risk” for not getting jobs and homes.
“It’s easier for people to be ignorant and stay in a one-sided perspective, when they don’t get to know the full spectrum,” she said, adding that it’s a Catch-22, because the need to inform and educate the general public means being open and vulnerable. Which is why, she said, they need civil rights laws for protection.
Gender, she said, is not just male or female, but a spectrum, and “very difficult for some people to understand, but it’s very real.”
She said people can learn more and educate themselves to reduce anxiety and fear they may feel when encountering someone LGBTQIA. Resources include Freedom for all Americans or Holland’s PFLAG or Gender SAFE
Out on the Lakeshore, which supports people in the LGBTQ community, is open to anyone who wants to learn more.
She said people don’t have to figure out for themselves what a best response is, if someone they know comes out. She said sometimes people panic in that moment, but they don’t have to.
As a Christian, she said, she is happy to see more Holland-area churches adopting a more-open approach, but it makes her sad to hear that some Christians feel being LGBTQIA is the work of Satan or those who adopt a “love the sinner, hate the sin” approach.
“Just love people for who they are. Just do that,” she said.
DeBoer said as a Christian, she feels “it is really important for me to love every person and treat them with dignity and respect, no matter how they treat me.”
She went onto say she doesn’t think people should be denied housing based on their sexual orientation.
“Holland doesn’t rush to change,” DeBoer said, adding that legal protections for people in the LGBTQIA community could have “unintended consequences.”
She said equal rights for LGBTQIA is an issue that has mystified states and the courts.
“I think this thing can get taken way beond the intention of just saying … ‘Let’s say it’s very important to protect every person, and we want to do that.’ We also want to protect everyone’s freedom at the same time.”
In 2015, DeBoer told WHTC she had gay friends who supported her campaign and they continue to support her this time around, but she noted she had not spoken with them this week.
She said she didn’t think the flyer controversy would affect Ottawa County’s overall diversity strategy.
She said she’d love to sit down and talk to LGBTQIA people about what was best for the community. She can be reached via her official city email: n.deboer@cityofholland.com.
