Michigan officials condemn ‘reprehensible’ remarks from salon owner who refuses service to LGBT+ people

Michigan’s attorney general has condemned “reprehensible” statements from a salon owner who has pledged to deny service to LGBT+ customers – comments that have drawn widespread outrage from civil rights groups, lawmakers and LGBT+ advocates days after the US Supreme Court sided with a Colorado business owner who refused to work with same-sex couples.

“If a human identifies as anything other than a man/woman, please seek services at a local pet groomer,” Christine Geiger wrote on Studio 8 Hair Lab’s Facebook page, which has since been made private.

“You are not welcome at this salon. Period,” the Traverse City salon owner added. Her salon’s Instagram account also is private, describing the salon as “a private CONSERVATIVE business that does not cater to woke ideologies.”

Last month, the US Supreme Court sided with a Colorado-based website designer who refused to make wedding websites for same-sex couples, with an influential right-wing legal firm arguing on her behalf that the state’s anti-discrimination law violates her First Amendment rights.

LGBT+ advocates and civil rights groups have warned that the decision could endanger already vulnerable rights of LGBT+ Americans and state governments’ abilities to protect them.

In a separate Facebook comment using her own name, Ms Geiger said she has “no issues with LGB. It’s the TQ+ that I’m not going to support.” She then falsely stated that the “+” in LGBT+ stands for pedophiles.

The “+” represents queer, intersex, two-spirit and other indigenous gender identities, among a wide spectrum of other gender identities and sexualities not represented by LGBT.

The salon owner’s comments also referenced Michigan civil rights legislation that would expand protections against discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, age and physical or mental disability.

She falsely stated that it would criminalise misgendering someone, a claim that Republican lawmakers have also raised during debate. No such legislation exists.

The office of Michigan’s attorney general Dana Nessel has received several complaints regarding the business, “and the Attorney General finds the comments to be hateful, reprehensible remarks that seek only to marginalise a community already suffering from discriminatory animus in Michigan and elsewhere,” press secretary Danny Wimmer told The Independent.

The state’s Department of Civil Rights have received eight requests for investigations, according to a department spokesperson; the department could not provide further comment because of potential and pending investigations.

Last year, Michigan’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of expanding the state’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to protect LGBT+ people from discrimination in employment, public accommodations, public services, housing and educational facilities.

New hate crimes legislation is a “a badly needed update to Michigan’s Ethnic Intimidation Act” with “unanimous and bipartisan support of prosecuting attorneys in every county of the state,” he added.

The legality of her denying service to LGBT+ people and any other actions under the state’s civil rights act and the state Supreme Court ruling “is likely to be litigated in the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling in 303 Creative that opened the door to discrimination by business entities where ‘expressive speech’ is at issue,” Mr Wimmer said.

The president of the ACLU of Michigan also stressed that “contrary claims made by this salon owner, refusing to serve individuals based on their gender identity violates [Michigan’s] Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act,” and that the Supreme Court decision in 303 Creative “doesn’t permit this type of discrimination.”

Mr Wimmer with the office of Michigan’s attorney general underscored that the 303 Creative decision “is not a blanket invitation to discriminate” and does not threaten legislative protections against LGBT+ discrimination in the state.

The department of attorney general “will continue to fight to protect the equal rights of all Michiganders,” Mr Wimmer added, “and when passed into law the Department will enforce the new hate crimes legislation as well.”

Another emerging test of the 303 Creative decision is brewing in a federal appeals court, where a right-wing legal firm is challenging a ruling that sided with a man who sued a Catholic high school that fired him after finding out he was engaged to his longtime male partner.

“If the First Amendment protects a business’s decision about which services to offer the public, it … protects a church’s decision about who is religiously qualified to fulfill the mission of a religious school,” the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty wrote in a letter to a federal appeals court last month – on the same day that the Supreme Court issued its ruling in 303 Creative.

State Rep Betsy Coffia, whose district includes Traverse City, has also condemned the salon owner’s remarks, which she said “perpetuate hate” and have “no place in Traverse City or anywhere else in Michigan.”

“To compare our LGBTQ+ neighbors to animals & pedophiles is breathtaking hate & bigotry from a studio in my community,” she said in a statement. “It is also dangerous because it dehumanizes fellow Michiganders at a time when violence against LGBTQ+ residents simply for who they are.”

Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and a native of Traverse City, said that “this the kind of full-throated bigotry and ignorance many advocates and leaders have been warning would become more mainstream due to the rapid increase in homophobia and transphobia in the GOP.”

“America should be moving forward, not backward. There are real problems to solve,” he added.

A statement from Michigan’s Polestar LGBT+ Community Center said “hate has shown time and time again to be a losing business strategy and we must not allow this blight to take root in our town.”

“Statements like the one from Studio 8 undermine the hard work that has been put in to make Traverse City the absolute best that it can be,” the organisation added.

The Independent has requested comment from Ms Geiger.