Apple, Verizon, Whirlpool Push Michigan LGBT Rights Referendum

Corporate leaders of Apple Inc., Verizon Communications, and Whirlpool Corp. are pushing for permanent legal protections for LGBT Michiganders that the state’s legislature has rebuffed for decades.

The companies are part of a corporate and activist collaboration seeking to expand state anti-discrimination law to cover a person’s gender identity and sexual orientation through a citizen referendum on the November 2020 ballot. They announced Jan. 7 that they are filing paperwork with the Michigan Secretary of State to begin the process of collecting at least 340,047 valid signatures before May 27, 2020.

The state currently has in place tenuous ...