Michigan's anti-gay-marriage amendment has been interpreted to ban all government provided benefits to gay couples, however long they have been together. Many are preparing to leave the state. Some of these couples have been together for decades. Kids are vulnerable too:
One well-publicized case involves Dennis and Tom Patrick, of neighboring Ypsilanti, who are raising four children. Because the oldest, a nine-year-old, requires special care and medical attention, Tom stopped working full-time in order to take care of him--taking health benefits through Dennis's employer, Eastern Michigan University (EMU). As a public university, EMU has to end spousal benefits under the prevailing ruling. And while Tom could always get benefits by returning to work full-time, he'd then have to leave care of the boy to somebody else. "I don't believe voters intended to hurt families and kids," Dennis told The Detroit News a year after the law first passed. "Our families exist, and no proposal or law is going to change [that]."
Will there be a backlash? Who knows? What I do know is that anyone under 30 has seen what the Republican party now stands for. And it isn't the values of the next generation.