The Detroit Free Press

Author: Todd Spangler

A large number from Michigan was represented as well, including former Gov. William Milliken, former state Attorney General Mike Cox, and Jennifer Gratz, executive director of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, who brought an affirmative action case that is being used by Schuette in the present one to argue that the state ban should be upheld.

“The bans are accordingly inconsistent with (our) understanding of the properly limited role of government,” the brief read. “There is a need for more Americans to choose to participate in the institution of marriage. Yet these bans, by denying each member of an entire class of American citizens the right to marry the person he or she loves, discourage those important family values.”