Michigan bans gay/trans panic defense
Eastern European countries inching toward civil unions laws
🇱🇹 Lithuania: The left-wing Freedom Party is continuing to threaten to blockade the coalition’s pick for European Commissioner unless the coalition agrees to pass the Civil Union Bill which has stalled at third reading.
🇽🇰 Kosovo: The Justice Minister is now saying the draft Civil Code, which includes civil unions and the possibility of future legislation for same-sex marriage, will pass sometime this year, having gained the support of one of the other parties in the legislature. This is a significant change from the prime minister most recently claiming it would pass this month.
🇵🇱 Poland: Speaking of deadlines, the equalities minister is now saying that the government must come to agreement on the civil union bill by the end of June, which is Sunday. They want to have the bill voted on in parliament in July. It looks like PM Tusk is ready to push the bill forward without any adoption rights, hoping to add them to future revisions to the Family Code. But the conservative coalition partners still seem unsatisfied and they seem to believe the bill is going to be vetoed by the president anyway.
Meanwhile, people are pointing out the hypocrisy of the current leader of the conservative PSL blocking the bill, as four years ago, he and his wife – *ahem*, er, second wife – expressed support for it.
🇺🇦🇲🇩🇪🇺 Ukraine and Moldova began formal membership talks with the EU, though the process is likely to take years. Membership is generally seen to lead to improvements in human rights.
🇬🇪 Georgia: The Council of Europe’s Venice Commission on democracy on law has slammed the anti-LGBT “propaganda” bill that the government is trying to force through. Of course, the government is now using that as a cudgel to promote the law and trash Europe, which is an odd place for a government trying to join the EU to be.
🗾Japan: Fukushima prefecture is the latest to announce that it will introduce a same-sex partnership registry, which will begin in the fall. That will bring the total to 30/27 prefectures with a registry system.
Meanwhile in the States
President Biden pardoned servicemembers convicted under the military’s sodomy law before it was repealed in 2013.
⚖️Michigan: The House gave final approval to the bill to ban the gay panic defense in the wee hours of this morning. The session appears to have been scheduled for 12:01 am, and as I’m typing this they’re on a break until 4:30 am local time. The bill now goes to governor Whitmer for signature. Michigan will be the 20th state (plus D.C.) to ban the gay panic defense in law.
This is likely the last bit of LGBT rights legislation Michigan passes this session, which ends in July. Michigan Democrats did pass a major non-discrimination law, a conversion therapy ban, and a hate-motivated vandalism law. Still languishing in the legislature are a bill to repeal the sodomy law, a bill to repeal the statutory ban on same-sex marriage, a constitutional amendment for marriage that never had a hope of passing, and the hate crime bill that no one could agree on. So there’s still work to do if the Democrats keep control of the legislature in November.
Incidentally, some people have wondered why deep blue Massachusetts appears to be an outlier among Democrat-run states not to ban it. I asked state senator Brownsberger about that earlier this month, and he says it’s already not a legal defense in Mass, ie, court precedent already says it can’t be used, so a law is unnecessary. I don’t have the actual precedent on that, but if anyone wants to point me to it, please do.