Attorney Dana Nessel was co-counsel with Carole Stanyar in the case of April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, who successfully challenged Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage. This column responds to news that Atty. Gen. Bill Schuette agreed to cover more than $1.9 million in legal fees for the Hazel Park couple, whose fight went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Schuette has been mentioned as a possible candidate for governor in 2018. The column is combination of comments from Facebook and additional ones provided to Deadline Detroit.
By Dana Nessel
Let's hope the voters remember this in 2018. Also, it should be noted that for the first nine months, this case was a simple effort to amend the Michigan Adoption Code to allow children being raised by same-sex couples to have two parents.
Bill Schuette fought us tooth-and-nail on that as well, which is what led the case to morph into a same-sex marriage case. Schuette's argument?
If the courts allow both partners in a same-sex couple to adopt, it eliminates the hope that one of the parents will eventually turn away from their sinful orientation, go straight, and marry a partner of the opposite sex who can then adopt the child(ren) with their reformed gay spouse.
This is not a fabrication. It was really Schuette's argument. And the 2 million dollars?
Just a drop in the bucket against the massive costs Schuette paid his own staff (including at least 5 full-time Asst. AG's, and several more who worked part-time or were independently contracted) to prosecute this case so that April and Jayne's kids would be prevented from having two legal parents.
This really was an epic "David vs Goliath battle." The state had millions, our client were lower-middle class nurses with no resources simply trying to do the best they could raising these 5 kids from the foster care system the state had placed with them in the first place.
How many AGs does it take to change a light bulb/ handle a deposition?
I had depositions where there was just one attorney for the plaintiffs and six AGs!
Most of our witnesses testified pro bono, since we had no $. All of their were paid tens of thousand of dollars, even the 26-year-old philosophy student the judge refused to qualify as an expert and who was banned from testifying.
I wonder how many rape kit testings, investigations and prosecutions those millions could have paid for.
