Today at around 8:45pm the word came out that 25% of the Kalamazoo residents turned out to vote far exceeding the usually 15% for city elections to vote a landslide 65% YES for Ord 1856 ending discrimination of employment, housing and public accommodation for sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. This comes after a year of the matter being put through the Democratic Process of City Hall, forums, city sub committees and full support from the 7 members of the City Commission

As a resident of Kalamazoo I write this with tears of joy in my eyes. I remember in late 2007 the first meetings with Michigan Equality, ACLU and Kalamazoo GLBT and Allied leaders to begin the drafting of this document. Today 2 years later we see victory.

The city of Kalamazoo is toasting tonight, and many people after working for weeks at 16+hour days are celebrating and awaiting the poll updates from Maine, New Jersey and telling our brothers and sisters in WA to still get out to vote for Ref 71!!

The Michigan Democratic Party is happy to see this pass and as the appointed LBGTA Caucus spokesperson I state that defeat to Discrimination for GLBT or any minority population in housing, employment and public accommodation, is never discrimination, and to say otherwise only upholds the discrimination. Today we have seen what was chanted in the National Equality March in DC less than a month ago, “This is what Democracy looks like, This is what Equality looks like!”

We will use this as a stepping stone for further state equality in Michigan for GLBT. Visit our website at http://mdplgbt.org/

If you have questions for the Caucus you can email me at adamtaylorus@yahoo.com for questions on the Ordinance contact the office of OneKalamazoo, @ www.onekalamazoo.com